Please include this in your print edition.
One nitpick: "pouring over your words" should be "poring over your words". http://idioms.thefreedictio...
Ron Maimon Ted • 6 years ago see morePlease don't, as it is a propaganda piece. Your other article is much better: http://www.wired.com/2014/1... .
Hlaode Guest • 6 years ago see moreI accidentally upvoted because I thought you were replying to the article.
Nigel Lockhart Hlaode • 6 years ago • edited see moreI purposefully downvoted because you've failed as a human being
OG_Locc Guest • 6 years ago see more"IDGAF"
The very existence of your reply clearly proves otherwise.
Ash Jon • 6 years ago see moreProbably for the best. I imagine it would only have made your head hurt, with all the long words and complicated multi clause sentences.
Nigel Lockhart NegroSven • 6 years ago see moreFunny; you're not. Too irrelevant; didn't care. Go eat a bullet with a side of rotting in a ditch where you will continue to be cared about by the same people as currently: No one.
envoy510 Nigel Lockhart • 6 years ago see moreYeah, it is. It doesn't matter what side you're on, if you use language like you did you are part of the problem.
Jack Kelling • 6 years ago see moreThat took forever. For this person I feel pity, and because of this person exhaustion. (Imagine how she feels) she should take solice in knowing ; in prison troll=fish.
Charlie Magee • 6 years ago see moreThanks for speaking out Kathy. I had no idea things had gotten this bad. If I was a coder I'd try to create that new place of engagement and discussion for you.
Shaitan Guest • 6 years ago see moreIf you're gonna make an inside joke, don't tell people you're making an inside joke ... makes you sound pretentious. "Oh, I'm a true gentleman so I'm going to make an obscure reference and then denigrate anybody who doesn't get it".
Soulxlight • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt seems a lot of people confuse troll with hater. A troll is not a hater and vise versa. A troll is someone that is posting just to get attention. A hater is someone that dislikes someone or something because of various reasons but usually because of success. Most, if not all, of what this author is referring to is haters.
Troll just seems to be a catchall these days like the word hacker regardless of if it actually fits the individual or not.
Guest Soulxlight • 6 years ago • edited see moreI thought the original use of the term troll was to describe someone who posts a purposefully false statement(or series of statements) designed to get an emotional response. The point was to prove that the person or persons being trolled are, in fact, asses with little self control and foolish opinions that otherwise would not have been revealed. For example: "Star Wars: A New Hope is a better movie than Return of the Jedi".
Of course, nowadays, it refers to sadistic sociopaths who revel in causing harm and suffering under the umbrella of an anonymous avatar.
pcf11x Guest • 6 years ago see moreWho told you that the bait has to be false? When the truth hurts it is even more effective.
kmansfield Guest • 6 years ago • edited see moreWe need to define species and subspecies of troll then, or their tactics. Trolls are interrupters. Their statements don't have to be false, but inflammatory, and even the truth can be viewed inflammatory.
There are types of trolls who do it to protect a certain brand, either because its part of their PR job, or they do it for free, for ideological reasons.
Trolls who do it for fun or the lulz are also amused with causing an emotional reaction. They can do it for good- see @momsagainstgam - against gamergate.
IMO what weev did to Kathy was online stalking, pro-active attempt to personally and professionally destroy her. This is is beyond trolling. It works for haters, because humans are lazy, most people wont do in-depth research into what actually took place, before taking a side and defending it.
I'll note though, you are also hitching your wagon here,to drive your own agenda- against online anonymity.
You are trolling against freedom of speech and privacy. In rebuttal, an anonymous persona doesn't have authoritative weight.Guest kmansfield • 6 years ago see more"I'll note though, you are also hitching your wagon here,to drive your own agenda- against online anonymity.
You are trolling against freedom of speech and privacy. In rebuttal, an anonymous persona doesn't have authoritative weight."
What in the hell are you talking about?
Raye Keslensky - Last Res0rt Soulxlight • 6 years ago see moreDoes the distinction matter if the harm caused is the same?
Ron Maimon Raye Keslensky - Last Res0rt • 6 years ago see moreThere is no harm, mental reject. The troll is doing you a favor, by removing taboos so that subjects may be discussed objectively. You don't need protection for the truth, it will do fine in a hostile environment. Only lies collapse, and that's what the internet is for.
Alberto Gaona PolO Avilés • 6 years ago • edited see moreIf you went along and read the whole letter and still ask what's wrong, who is to be considered himself some piece of crap, mister?
Ash PolO Avilés • 6 years ago see moreI think your criticism could as easily be levelled at you. It appears your taco-mind missed the reference to the big picture in this article, the larger issues that it brings up.
Those in glass houses should really think about moving.
pcf11x Alberto Gaona • 6 years ago see moreAnyone who reads this whole pack of drivel deserves to be trolled.
Nigel Lockhart PolO Avilés • 6 years ago see moreWhat's wrong with Wired letting underdeveloped and insignificant children like you into their comment system? Your parents should just go ahead with that really late-term abortion of their failure that is you.
cletis PolO Avilés • 6 years ago see moreYou're right; there is nothing wrong with Wired publishing this.
Ash PolO Avilés • 6 years ago see moreI imagine they feel they can publish what they like and that you can simply not read it. Perhaps you could link us to your magazine, and you can show us how it should be done?
Oskar • 6 years ago see moreActually, I'm just proud that someone stands up to idiots like this..Please disregard the hate in this thread, whatever may come. I seriously wonder what's wrong with this world. Thank you Kathy for sharing!
Jane Snape GP • 6 years ago see moreDidn't you know? Women are "trolling" merely by existing. (Just as Kathy pointed out.)
GP Jane Snape • 6 years ago see moreYa, I mean, if we don't want to get trolled, why do we even exist? It's just basic logic.
Raven GP • 6 years ago see moreWhy, your merely being in the presence (real or virtual) of a man constitutes consent for him to deliver any kind of abuse to you, from verbal on up. Count yourself lucky to escape with a friendly buttock-slap!
Raven GP • 6 years ago see moreUm... your sudden absence after my "Count yourself lucky" reply has me worried. I hope that was not somehow taken as intimidation rather than continuation of the friendly banter in this subsubthread.
I don't in general hold with conditional apologies, but here I don't even know whether a problem exists! *If* I have made you at all nervous about participating here, *then* I'm profoundly sorry for it, that was not my intention; please accept my apology and come back.
GP Raven • 6 years ago see moreHaha, don't worry about it! I'm in England and I had a crazy amount of stuff to do over the past couple of days. The time differences and my innability to pay attention to my Disqus notifications are the only reason I didn't respond. Sorry to make you nervous!
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreYo, Raven, are you the author of this article by any chance? Because then you don't have an independent opinion, and I shouldn't have counted you as such.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Yo, Raven, are you the author of this article by any chance?"
No, Ron. I'm the author of these, not at all the same sort of writing:
http://celtic-twilight.com/camelot/poetry/joserlin/index.htm
http://members.tripod.com/cort_bol/BOLart20.html
(A Usenet post, 5 September 2001)Now that's not a huge sampling, but they've been up for years, the gender of viewpoint (where mentioned) is distinctly male, and I don't think it's technically feasible for me to have retroactively posted at least the third item to fake you out.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreAll you have to do is say it. I'll remove the insinuations. Thanks.
Raven Jane Snape • 6 years ago see moreYeah, why should men be responsible for their actions? Blame the things that motivate them! They get addicted to smoking? It's nicotine's fault! Crush the cigarettes! They've become drunks? It's alcohol's fault! Pour the liquor down the drain! They have overly strong urges toward women? It's the women's fault! Beat on the women!
Honest to goodness, I think there's some such "thought" process involved.
No less a moral authority than Saint Augustine of Hippo declared women "sacks of s**t" because men's emotions are led astray by them. There you have it. (He said nothing about men being likewise for leading women's emotions astray.)
Guest • 6 years ago • edited see moreI almost stopped reading once I realized that sociopaths rated higher on her spectrum of social consciousness than "super smart white males."
I really liked Head First: Design Patterns and I've read some of Kathy Sierra's online articles, but I have always thought that the value she places on developer communities is misdirected. What do I care about another programmer's hopes or dreams or stories or whatever? Are they actively checking in good code? That's important. This is about engineering, not summer camp.
There are a number of developers who have websites I read from time to time and I strongly doubt that it's purely the genders of Steve McConnell and Paul Graham that have insulated them from the kind of abuse that Kathy Sierra has experienced. Their priorities seem different from Kathy's, so they attract a different following.
Charlie Magee Guest • 6 years ago see moreI disagree. Before online discourse was invented, bullies picked on people weaker than them, those they thought they could easily beat up. Online, women are an easier target because in these guy's reptilian minds, they have no way of knowing how big/strong/determined their male target might be. He might actually hunt them down and beat the shit out of them. Much easier to assume that a woman is less likely to consider such an action.
Guest Charlie Magee • 6 years ago see moreI think you are giving people too much credit. I do not believe that anyone who engages in that kind of conduct is seriously taking a moment to consider the personal risk of an in-person meeting with their target. Have you seen a photo of Steve McConnell or Paul Graham?
Charlie Magee Guest • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou're right. That's my point: they're not taking a moment. They're not thinking. The decision occurs before the rational mind gets going. Bullies instinctively go for the easy target. We're talking weak men here. They don't attack those stronger than themselves. Graham, etc. seem stronger to them due to accomplishments. Women passing these guys is a personal affront.
Guest Charlie Magee • 6 years ago • edited see moreI am not qualified to debate the functions of the human mind. I'm a developer. I see that Kathy did not identify as a developer, whereas the other authors I referenced frequently do. I suspect that the breadth of her subject material attracts a wider audience...
As we're looking past the more immediate white male vs sociopaths business, I no longer care. I see Weev is a white supremecist - they can fight one another for all it matters.
Edward Pope Charlie Magee • 6 years ago see moreI think we would all love to see trolls go away, but they are actually needed. Frankly if in discussing something you have a troll come into your discussion. Be thankful, as they give you a greater understanding of your point. Generally they are not smart enough for the most part to follow the discussion, but they can make you think about other sides. Not saying that I like trolls, but I deal with them in my own way.
Edward Pope Edward Pope • 6 years ago see moreCall them the Anti-People. The present nonsense points, and force you to decide if your point is worth the effort. You dot not have to engage them for long, just long enough to use them to solidify your point with yourself. Maybe I am unrealistic. But (SMILE) then again I think people are better when under stress.
Ash Edward Pope • 6 years ago • edited see moreHow many rape threats did you get last year? What positive things came of your interactions with all the people threatening to assault you?
yesteray Edward Pope • 6 years ago see moreSorry, but posting your address and social security number online, photoshopping your child's head onto porn, or threatening to rape you or your family members doesn't do much to give you a greater understanding of your point and it's hard to imagine anything in those actions to be thankful for.
pcf11x yesteray • 6 years ago see moreTo me the Internet is pure entertainment, and some of what you describe sounds pretty funny actually.
Edward Pope yesteray • 6 years ago see moreActually I agree with you. I am talking about the types who at least argue their beliefs. The one as you describe should be arrested and taken through the media circus to at least experience what they do to others. But I know that is not realistic. We need anti trolls that shut down other trolls maybe?
Not sure. Either way this insanity had to stop.
Ash Edward Pope • 6 years ago see moreRape threats by entitled idiots make me think all sorts of things, but none of them are positive, or progress any of us towards a better understanding of anything, except maybe giving us an insight into what some mental health issues look like when they go unchecked.
Ash Guest • 6 years ago see moreI await your elucidation of the priority differences that account for the overall trend of abuse towards women.
Are all women's priorities not manly enough?
Guest Ash • 6 years ago see moreI'm not talking about overall trends. I'm talking about a group of developers. You'll need to try a lot harder.
Ash Guest • 6 years ago see moreAh, I see. So your position is that, although the trend for abuse of women online is real and you do not argue that point, that these particular women being abused online are not part of that trend.
Gotcha.
Well, at least *you* think it makes sense.
Guest Ash • 6 years ago see moreI'm still waiting... If you could take a break from responding to every single post and focus on one particular discussion, I think you would have a better chance of making a salient point.
lopan • 6 years ago see moreTrolls who only want to stir shit don't bother me as much as the armies of paid liars who inundate the internet for the Russian government, or the oil industry, or the Koch brothers. Those people need to be trolled back hard.
kmansfield lopan • 6 years ago see more"Trolls for the Russian government"
That's what the Guardian claimed when they announced they would be deleting pro-russian comments, but what I saw was an influx of anti-Russian commenters who disappeared as soon as the Ukrainian pseudo-election was over. I see the same thing every time the US wants to
attacksend our humanitarian bombs into some country that hasn't attacked it's neighbors.
JonOMD • 6 years ago • edited see moreUgh. The punishment for convicted haters should be the mandatory reading of this article and then having to write a book report about it...Zzzzz.
{Edit, as noted by posters above, the author's first paragraph disclaimer was not included when many of us 1st posted. It does cast her article in a different light, I will be 1st to admit}
Don Romano JonOMD • 6 years ago see moreOh my god. Just, oh my god. See? Another person who doesn't know how to be nice. What's WRONG with you people? Were you raised by psychopaths?
Soulxlight Don Romano • 6 years ago see moreSeriously dude ? Can people not comment their opinion that the article is too long simply because the author went through some crap ? As should be noted from the article she isn't some little weakling, she's rather strong of mind in my opinion so she can hear that her article is a little long winded. Maybe this will help her be more concise in the future.
RationalCenter Soulxlight • 6 years ago see moreDo you nit-pick the grammar of your friends and family members when they're pouring their guts out to you?
Zaoldyeck Soulxlight • 6 years ago see moreGod why can't everyone just be Hemingway? People are so stupid when they're not literary masters by expressing difficult emotional states.
She wasn't trying to be concise, she wrote it for personal catharsis, did you bother to read the first paragraph? Or was it too long you forgot about it?
Petty quips like this don't help anyone. If you could understand her point, that's enough. She isn't reading your comments, nor should she be. This isn't advice here. If you wanted clear reading you could put every sentence through the Hemmingway App, so what?. It's not the point she was trying to make nor necessary for writing unless you're trying to keep things readable for a sixth grader.
Do you read Crime and Punishment and think 'you know Dostoyevsky wrote a lot to say a little?' He's hardly concise.
Soulxlight Zaoldyeck • 6 years ago see moreAs noted by another poster, the original "Note", or first paragraph as you put it wasn't posted with the article, it was added later so the context in which she wrote it wasn't originally there.
Zaoldyeck Soulxlight • 6 years ago see moreI read this on her blog first, so I was under the impression that the 'note' was always originally there, even if wired didn't originally reproduce it.
So my mistake. Although I still have a rather strong dislike for 'style over substance' type arguments.
"I'm exasperated" as is clearly the author voice, is kinda inviting long windedness. If you were an author trying to capture a character who is exasperated, for example, you really wouldn't benefit from making them quick and sharp witted, terse and logical.
I don't think any real advice comes from 'I don't like this author voice, change it'. I don't believe the note is really needed for coherence. (Though it does make the intent explicit)
Ash Soulxlight • 6 years ago see moreOnly a fool or a troll would imagine 'tl;dr' functions as a constructive criticism.
Edward Pope Don Romano • 6 years ago see moreI agree that the article was a little long. I am not surprised by the various negative reactions. Still, the article had a point. Which it seems many are missing here. Then again, here I am feeding the trolls.
pcf11x Edward Pope • 6 years ago see moreIf there was a point I couldn't wade far enough into it to get to the point personally.
envoy510 pcf11x • 6 years ago see moreIf you truly believe what you say, then you aren't that smart. The point was blindly obvious. Of course, I don't think you are stupid. I think you're a troll.
Ash pcf11x • 6 years ago see moreIf you say so. I know you by your actions, not by your testing scores from however many years ago. Be who you say you are, and you wouldn't have to say you are as much.
pcf11x Ash • 6 years ago see moreTest results are not what I say so at all. Test results are performance quantified. If anything since then I've gotten even better too, because I've been practicing a lot.
Ash pcf11x • 6 years ago • edited see moreI referred to the nature of your boast, not the nature of the tests themselves. I know you took the SAT because you said so, and I know your score proves you have great reading skills because you said so.
Your reading comprehension was in question. It would appear you have just thrown it into question again with your last response, given that you seem to have missed the difference between 'a test result' and 'your report of a test result'.
I said I know you by your actions. They continue to display an apparent difficulty with textual interpretation.
Please, publish your SAT so we can all see how unhelpful test scores are at predicting real-world ability.
Ash pcf11x • 6 years ago see moreI think you misunderstand the dynamic. This is not surprising.
You displayed poor reading skills, I commented on them. You referred to unseen external evidence as a rebuttal.
I don't care how smart you think you are. My comments were regarding your input in thread, and I've already seen that.
You want people to take into account how clever you say were when you were a teenager. Why should we? We can already see how unintelligent and incapable you are now.
Don Romano • 6 years ago see moreIt always amazes me how hard it is for people to just be nice. I mean even just in this comment thread. She's sharing her thoughts, and people are going "TL;DR". Your mothers should wash your mouths with soap!
Don Romano Guest • 6 years ago see moreI read it all the way through, and was not bored. Just using the insult "boring" is rather rude, if you ask me. In this context, it's rather insensitive. You're labeling this person's hardship as "boring". To me, that's really really cold.
Guest Don Romano • 6 years ago see moreDon't worry, he might just another malicious "super smart white male."
We are entitled to deem an article "boring" inasmuch as we are allowed to wear panties.
Don Romano Guest • 6 years ago see more"If you haven't got anything good to say, don't say anything at all."
In some cases, criticism can be good. Sometimes, people who really step out of line need to hear criticism. Writing a "boring" article isn't it, though.
II The Salt JonOMD • 6 years ago see moreIts an opinion but not valid in the context that long winded is necessary as these events are a saga. The development of different dynamics at varying stages lends itself in the telling. You may not see the difference until you experience for yourself. If you havent then Kathy has provided it for you and now you have. If that provokes criticism then youved missed the point, and thats what is disliked - see the difference
Ash JonOMD • 6 years ago see moreGood job you didn't say all that hateful shit, then, JonOMD!
We are all totally fooled by your super-clever loophole, the 'what a desperately tragic bufoon would have said' gambit.
JonOMD Ash • 6 years ago • edited see moreNot really, it's a spoof. I'd say in actuality she's average to slightly attractive, probably more so when she was younger. I also put an edit in my post below that the first paragraph disclaimer was not originally in the wired article. Basically, the author acknowledges her article was poorly laid out and edited, but that it was not originally planned to be a published article, just a simple blog entry, which is a totally different beast expectation-wise. That explains a lot, but if anything affirms the original contention of many that it is long-winded and rambling as written. This is not only a valid opinion then, but one the author herself would seem to hold.
I will admit though, I am pretty weary of the tyranny of "nice" in Modern America, where everyone's a winner just for trying, and one should never be critical of anyone, lest someone feelings or self esteem might somehow be damaged. Perhaps that led me to be a bit extreme.
Ash JonOMD • 6 years ago see moreThe tyranny of nice that you speak of is invoked more often in the negative.
And I got that it was a 'spoof'. I got that you decided to say some hateful shit 'in character', and so think you are distanced from doing so. You are not as far from it as you think.
Have you since deleted it?
Ash JonOMD • 6 years ago see moreWhat is it a spoof of, exactly? I take it you know what spoof means?
Guest Don Romano • 6 years ago see moreWe will have to agree to disagree that only comments you deem polite are permitted.
Soulxlight Don Romano • 6 years ago • edited see moreBoring is a per person thing and sorry, though I read the article, it was rather drawn out and "boring". While I seriously don't support what happened to the author, I do feel that she could have condensed the entire thing a little bit. As any editor knows more is not always better. If you can say it with 3 words don't use 5.
Ash Soulxlight • 6 years ago see moreI disagree that this could have been said with 3/5 of the words used. It's a complicated subject, and a simpler article would have failed to address that successfully and completely.
Torkil Johnsen Soulxlight • 6 years ago see moreShe wrote this mostly for herself, she says. Seeing as this is a very personal topic for her, I can understand that trying to condense it, or even going over it multiple times for editing, can be rather stessful. Then there is also the editor's choice to publish it unedited, which I think this case clearly calls for, given the nature of the topic.
Priya Chand Soulxlight • 6 years ago see moreSaying she could condense the thing is a far cry from just dismissing the entire article--and by implication the topic--as
boring." Plus, as WIRED acknowledges, the whole thing was lifted verbatim from her blog.
MichaelZWilliamson Don Romano • 6 years ago see moreIt wasn't the most concise article I've read, but emotion comes through in words. That may be beyond the social capabilities of Mr Jesus.
Ron Maimon MichaelZWilliamson • 6 years ago see moreYou don't need false emotion when you are telling the truth.
Kay B. Day Don Romano • 6 years ago see moreI guess 'Republican Jesus', whatever that is, missed the prelude: "t is long and rambling and unedited and one of the few things I've written that I wrote mostly for myself. "
I didn't find it boring. It made me think of some private poetry groups I once workshopped where some would be targeted by one or the other poet who'd dubbed himself a genius. No one knows those geniuses' names or works, but still.
Sad that the troll piggybacked on another's misery to build his brand.
Josh M Don Romano • 6 years ago • edited see moreMaybe you should wash your own mouth out with soap for condoning abuse of adults over opinions you piece of subhuman garbage.
Guest Guest • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou clearly enjoy your life and have lots of accomplishments to your name.
facefault Guest • 6 years ago see moreThe reason no one loves you is that you're boring, arrogant, and joyless.
And if you feel the need to tell people you're smart, you aren't.
Carl A. Myrland Guest • 6 years ago see moreAllright, Sheldon. We get it. You hate everybody. Want some cocoa?
dq Guest • 6 years ago see moreIf you have autism, there are resources out there that can help you. This is not the way.
facefault Guest • 6 years ago • edited see moreSaying you're smart on a comment section is telling people you're smart. You're not desperate for your coworkers' approval, but you're still desperate for approval. That's why you pretend to have opinions so edgy you can cut yourself on them. You want people to think you're a daring truth-teller.
The opinions you're parroting are not only wrong, they're boring.
Queued Queuedington Guest • 6 years ago see moreI guess you're not a genius at selecting a career
Priya Chand Guest • 6 years ago see moreIt must be nice to have a job that takes place in a vacuum.
Cuttlefish Guest • 6 years ago see moreInteresting! Trolls do not think human beings have intrinsic value.
Melissa Anelli • 6 years ago • edited see moreI've been fighting this war for 6.5 years with just one - just one - serious, disturbed, off-the-internet-into-real-life stalker. I went to the FBI, and the FBI paid attention. I am not famous. You are more known than I am. But here's the NPR story from February that went live after I got fed up with not feeding her and with everyone's advice which seemed to not be working:
http://www.npr.org/2014/02/...
About two months ago, she was finally rearrested. A few days ago, she pled guilty to criminal harassment. We are awaiting sentencing.
It's slow, it's painful, it's the worst, it's torture, and people just don't get it. I have a lot of friends who are a LOT more known than me on the Internet and deal with the large volume of trolls and don't seem to acknowledge how serious I am when I say that this one person - who I will never call a troll, she is a serious stalker - has tortured me over these 6.5 years and that I mean it just as seriously as I possibly can. It took me this long to even talk about it publicly. She sends things to my family, my friends, my home, the home of my godchild and nephew. It is not any less real because it started with pixels.
I can direct you to some resources, happily. Thank you for continuing this discussion: it's a very important one that not enough people are having.
EDIT: And just tonight she has broken the terms of her bail and sent me another threatening message. These things don't end and anyone who pretends that law enforcement shouldn't pay attention is sadly deluded.
Melissa Anelli Melissa Anelli • 6 years ago see more(Sorry for typos, my computer was choking hard when I was writing that post and I didn't catch them all.)
f0rget Guest • 6 years ago see moreA firearm for self-defense is not for fantasists. If you had ever had a gun shoved in your face you would reconsider your statement I believe.
Guest f0rget • 6 years ago see moreI have had several 'shoved in my face' in the past ten years alone and I still consider it cowardly to own one, but one 'copes' based on what one is taught.
Back on the subject...trolls are as useless as guns.f0rget Guest • 6 years ago see moreI can't say I understand your choices but if staying unarmed is important to you then by all means do it. Personally I got a concealed carry permit after someone attempted to victimize me.
oldejack Guest • 6 years ago see more"...trolls are as useless as guns."
I disagree, at least a gun can be (not frequently in today's society but it could happen ;) ) used for purposes other than expressing ones immaturity.Tim Sebold Guest • 6 years ago see moreReally, you've had "several" guns shoved in your face in the last ten years? Sounds like a stretch just to make an internet point.
Guest Tim Sebold • 6 years ago see moreWork as a security guard for a few years, Mujambo, then get back to me after you have completed your 'stretching' exercises.
Sheesh, clueless.
Mooser Guest • 6 years ago see moreSo once you've got somebody else's gun stuck in your face, what good does a gun do you. Can you please explain? Quite confusing.
kirbang f0rget • 6 years ago • edited see moreif you had a gun shoved in your face what good is the one in your holster. This is the reality of gun use in America. It is valueless and contributes to the pool of guns deployed by the criminals.
Fianna D f0rget • 6 years ago see moreAs the saying goes, "A liberal is a conservative who has never been mugged."
justGoscha f0rget • 6 years ago see moreHow is owning a gun help you in this situation, lol? If you try to draw it you will probably have a bullet in your face already. The only solution to your proble is when no one has a gun.
Elysium Hynes Melissa Anelli • 6 years ago see moreThank you so much for sharing your story, please stay safe.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreA factual report of criminal stalking actually occurring in the real world, not even disputed by the defendant (who pled guilty) -- this you call "propaganda"? You say it's a piece in favor of internet censorship... perhaps you could quote the pertinent piece of text where the author so much as suggests that censorship would even help, because I just looked and could not find any.
Censorship appears to be your bugaboo, your bête noire, such that you see it in every corner, see it proposed by people who've never suggested it, and then attack them furiously. But that only means you behave like a madman, reacting to things and events that aren't real.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon, exactly *where* is she "trying to paint it as the end of the world" ?
That would indeed be a massive overinflation, but I didn't see her do that.
Rather, *you* appear to be overinflating what she wrote, right now.
"... and maligning millions of honest non-threatening people in the process, by linking their harmless internet activities to threats"
Okay, again, exactly *where* did she call NON-threats threats?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreKathy Sierra had her home address posted on a forum, where she was flamed. That's all that happened to her, it is the beginning and end of her plight.
She has argued for censorship of comments in the past, that's what led to the conflict, and she argues for civility. Censorship is evil, and civility is evil.
The internet is rude for a reason, it is rude so that you can't do propaganda without getting insulted. The insults are healthy to the extent that they prevent formation and concentrations of authority, and they work. People online have zero authority, and an authority free open discussion leads to truth very quickly becoming self-evident.
Our comment discussion is an example. I think anyone reviewing the discussion has a much greater chance of getting an accurate historical picture than if this person watched all the documentaries on the subject on TV. The discussion itself is useless, it is simply a handle for people to search for related academic materials and read them. Hostile discussions lead to accuracy, because people are given a stark choice between different bony skeletons upon which they can hang the facts they find online. The facts they find independently quickly make it clear which skeleton is more accurate.
But propaganda tries to disallow certain things from getting said, especially rude things, because rudeness kills propaganda dead. So you get an elephant man version of the truth.
Online hostility can lead to some personal nuisances sometimes, the author of the article did feel psychologically threatened because someone posted her home address. That's unfortunate, it shouldn't have happened, but it isn't particularly terrible. She should know better than to think that a flame war is a motive for violence, and she shouldn't call the flame war "death threats", and she should make insinuations that her children were threatened, because her adult children were not threatened (and neither was she threatened in any credible way).
The internet produces a nearly insuperable barrier between speech and violence, so the discussions can be free to be vicious. Vicious discussions immediately neutralize propaganda from any side, whether the propaganda is for accurate or inaccurate viewpoints.
All it takes is one person saying "boo hoo" for a sob story to be neutralized. All it takes is one person calling you names for consensus to disappear momentarily. The way to verify the truth of assertions is to research them using neutral scholarly sources, and this doesn't happen unless people see an irreconcilable conflict.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "Kathy Sierra had her home address posted on a forum, where she was flamed. That's all that happened to her...."
If you don't count the death threats (not just flames) that also were sent to her.
"... it is the beginning and end of her plight."
Just as you said 1932 was the "year" (singular, the beginning and the end) of the famine?
Well, we now know how reliable you are as a judge of the end of things.
"... propaganda tries to disallow certain things from getting said, especially rude things, because rudeness kills propaganda dead."
Really? Rudeness and propaganda get along pretty well, always have, in shouting down opponents on college campuses or in Nazi Germany or in the Soviet Union. You've been ALL-CAPS shouting "Denial of the Holodomor" propaganda here, rooted in old-time Stalinist disinformation, with rudeness and false accusations (even of "fascism" no less!), along with the order "just shut up" -- trying to disallow rebuttals from getting said. Your rudeness didn't kill your propaganda at all.
"The internet produces a nearly insuperable barrier between speech and violence...."
Elsewhere on this thread are linked multiple news items proving otherwise, online arguments leading to either attempted or successful murders.
"The way to verify the truth of assertions is to research them using neutral scholarly sources...."
Which is why I provide links to sources backing up my assertions, so you can do just that. You have chosen not to avail yourself of the opportunity, contradicting what you say here. You also choose not to provide such links yourself, but only your bare assertion -- as you say, you trust your ass, and apparently you expect everyone else to trust it too. It's a pity your ass has been caught in so many blatant lies.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreShe didn't get any personal death threats sent to her. That's simply a lie. She got flames on the internet forum that said "you should be mauled by wild tigers", and she called them "death threats" in this article.
The year starting from the bad 1932 harvest and ending with the good 1933 harvest is the singular year of Stalin's famine. It does not comprise a single calendar year, since harvests don't come in January. There was some food insecurity later too, the collective farming was not very good.
Rudeness works as propaganda only when it is restricted to come from one side. It works as counterpropaganda when it comes from both sides equally, and when there are two equally vicious sides, people look at the evidence.
I don't deny the Ukrainian famine. I am telling you what it was. It was a collectivization of farming and the associated collectivization famine, which occurs again in every involuntary collectivization effort in agriculture. It is a genocide in the same sense as the Irish famine was a genocide. I would argue that both are genocides broadly speaking. The collectivization and collective measures which led to starvation was bad enough as it was.
But all the discussions regarding the number of Stalin's victims are straight up lies, taking victims of famine, and turning them into victims of political execution. and one must be rude and spit on the graves of millions of actually suffering people to correct this.
The extent of the 1932-33 famine is difficult to judge, but the number of non-famine victims of Stalin is of order 1 million people, and the number of famine victims has been played with politically. The best estimate I would make personally is 5 million famine victims over all the USSR, mostly children and the elderly, which is a pretty catastrophic famine, and is consistent with the reminiscences of people I have read from the era. The 1932 famine is the worst death toll associated with Stalin, and it is not political repression exactly, but collectivized agriculture. Mao's collectivization program led to a worse famine.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "She didn't get any personal death threats sent to her."
And you know this exactly how, Ron? You checked her email inbox? The snailmail sent to the address Weev posted? Her voicemail?
You have no actual way of knowing.
You guess. You assume.
And you are recklessly asserting things like the above -- and "That's simply a lie" -- when in fact you have no knowledge as to their truth or falsity.
Which is nearly the dictionary definition of "false representation" on your part.
"She got flames on the internet forum...."
Undoubtedly. But that's no basis to assert she got nothing else.
"The year starting from the bad 1932 harvest and ending with the good 1933 harvest is the singular year of the famine...."
In fact the famine started in the winter of 1931, so even this you can't get right. And what is this one-harvest-a-year business? Which crops -- winter, spring, or summer -- are you counting as "the" harvest?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreThe basis for asserting that she got nothing else: she never says she got anything else. She didn't get anything else, and that's just a fact. She makes it sound as if she did, using indirection and propaganda.
The details of the collectivization famine in the USSR: there was a smaller Khazakstan famine in 1931 in the pilot collectivization program, and then a terrible all-USSR famine, worst in the Ukraine in 1932 and surrounding regions, which is the one that claimed millions of victims.
The bad harvests were all the initial collectivized harvests, as collective farms are intrinsically less efficient than small plots, and further, the new labor on these farms was inexperienced in collective farming and run incompetently. The famine ended with the first good harvests of 1933. During that year, the mortality was atrocious.
justGoscha Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreHow stupid actually are you? You mix up facts, you blow up any of your arguments to be totally fatalistic.
How is moderating commentary censorship? It is a thing of politeness. Nobody wants a discussion full of insults, death threats etc., how the fuck is this going to help any discussion?
If someone has an own personal blog, it is his right to moderate, and don't take any shit from any pissed off troll on the Internet.You didn't say anything about the things she pointed out in the text. Did you actually read it?
Why are people hating on someone when they are famous and they just think she doesn't deserve the attention.How is it helping in finding the truth when so many lies are spread? You say the uncensored Internet is the only way to come to find the truth.
First of all there's no objective truth. We have to decide which values are important to us as human beings, and obviously for you respect, equality and politeness are completely unimportant. But, some people still care about it on the Internet...
Second, there's probably more stupid lies on the Internet, and many people fall for it, and she talked about that too. She even has evidence, but the trolls only say they have "evidence" and it's often sufficient for other mind controlled trolls (and even non trolls) to fall for it and accuse her.
What if someone posts offensive pictures of your newborn daughter and you ban them or report them to facebook, is this also banning and propaganda and against internet freedom?
Man, you're just a troll... nobody deserves doxxing and we as a society should do something against it, and that doesn't mean censoring things. She even writes it in this very article! There are sites were it is working. Sites that have a healthy community. Just read the article! And not what you think, what she means, and that it's all propaganda.
Ron Maimon justGoscha • 6 years ago see moreI want a discussion full of insults, but no death threats. The death threats are a one-in-a-million occurence, and one does not need to censor 999,999 hostile comments to get rid of one inappropriate, but empty, threat.
justGoscha Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreAnd where did she ACTUALLY say, that she wants Internet discussion to be censored?
She is not against comment moderation on certain types of blogs (why should you not throw out assholes and haters, when you try to build an encouraging or helpful community). But She also said, we need to do something against internet abuse and censorship is the worst solution!
If digging through dirt and shit, to get to the useful comments and information is okay for you, you must have an awful lot of time.
Ron Maimon justGoscha • 6 years ago see moreThe problem with internet comment moderation is that it enforces the point of view of the moderator, except in cases where the moderator takes special effort to be open to all positions. The role of the internet is to allow the creative destruction of bad ideas, and this process is extremely rude, but must be allowed to function.
In the real world, moderation powers are used to suppress dissent much more often than they are used to get rid of threats. The simple fact is that threats hardly ever come, and when they do, they can be handled simply by usual methods, as they are abberations. One of the nice things online is that there is a nearly insuperable barrier to violence, which protects opinions from retribution.
The open discussion is more valuable if it is let alone. That doesn't mean that every comment needs to be preserved, but comments which are long, which are thought out, which have nontrivial statements (including rude ones) are important, because they show disagreement. The rudeness is the most important feature, as it leads to accuracy over time, even in competely uncensored places, like youtube comments, you can find nontrivial discussions which converge on unpopular truths, so long as the discussion is both rude, and focused.
The goal for me is preserving rude focused honest discussion. Any attack on rudeness is ultimately an attack on honesty, even if it is tempered with moderation and sounds reasonable. Censorship always sounds reasonable, and it hardly ever is.
justGoscha Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreThere is no "role of the Internet". The Internet is human made, and so it is flawed and can be used for anything good, bad and whatever.
I get your main point.
Censorship = Bad
Abuse = < Bad (less bad)What the author says:
Abuse = Bad
Censorship = BadYou basically say the same thing. But the author says, we should do something about ABUSE without compromising free speech.
What you say is: Fuck the author, she's lying, nothing happened to her or her kids, she makes propaganda for censorship.This is evidently wrong. She does not do propaganda for censorship, but against it. She's also for a more reasoned online discussion, without insults and abuse. *You do propaganda* for rudeness and ill tactics in online discussions.
justGoscha Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more"And I also know the worst possible approach would be more aggressive banning, or restricting speech (especially not that), or restricting anonymity." - citation of the article
This citation alone, kills all of your arguments and accusations about propaganda for restricting free speech, anonymity and the internet!
So just read the article before you comment, troll!
Ron Maimon justGoscha • 6 years ago see moreIt doesn't kill it, it is simply tempering an odious idea with the facade of moderation. The hostile discussions are a form of peer review, they prevent the accumulation of authority and the stifling of unpopular opinions.
The linking of internet hostility to violence is a false association designed to prevent hostile and rude internet peer review from working, by requiring niceness. There is no nice way to say "you are full of crap", and there is no threat of violence in that.
justGoscha Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreShe didn't say moderation or banning is a desirable solution, how often do I have to reiterate. Read the fucking text, before you comment, that's all I want to say. There can't be a meaningful discussion with someone who is simply to lazy to read and to comprehend. No wonder you were kicked out from your physic peers or whatever... if just shout shit into a room, without even reading anything. You, open your mind for once and read what is there, not the propaganda you imagine in your mind.
You are a lazy, technocrat fundamentalist. The only argument you have is reiterating your old argument. Censorship and propaganda... I told you the article is AGAINST censorship and you jump on another train of thought, without acknowledging your defeat.
Again.. just read that line and get it in your head. Then you can sleep on it, so it can sink in your brain, cause your learning and understanding process seems to be especially slow:
"And I also know the worst possible approach would be more aggressive banning, or restricting speech (especially not that), or restricting anonymity." - citation of the article
Ron Maimon justGoscha • 6 years ago • edited see moreI see you are rude and obnoxious, all right! Good job. I therefore agree to defer to your judgement, and accept everything you say without reservation, so long as it is exactly your interpretation, and not someone else. It would be just peachy if you were in charge of the decisions on who to ban and who to block, and what to delete.
But you're not really in charge, and there is subtext in this article you are blind to, which is contradicting the direct statement you quote (I agree with the direct statement).
Still, whatever, that's ok. You are an asshole too, so I am on your side. I agree with all the negative things you have to say about me, so long as you are willing to consistently defend hostile and insulting tone like the one you used, no matter in which direction the insults are going.
The people who argue for moderation want to get rid of insults in one direction only, the insults going from the powerless to the powerful. Insults from the powerful to the powerless are usually subtle, and invisible to everyone except those they are insulting.
justGoscha Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreWhat is powerful about a girl who's life is threatened? Who is pushed out of the internet?
Lay out some ground rules and discuss by them. Period. Insults don't contribute anything.
Scientific discussions have no insults. If you think such polluted discussions can contribute anything, you're just delusional.
These discussions on the internet also don't prove anything, because they are never fact based. They're just two subjective opinions that can either agree on some point or don't. Nobody is cutting your freedom by banning your comment. You can still write it on your own blog. You can publish a book on it or a paper. And get it peer reviewed by the scientific community if you want (which is also flawed).The good thing is though. Social norm is decided on a Democratic basis, and your opinion is not the norm. No one is supporting your claims. You can't even deflect basic arguments. We are moving towards an internet revolution which will contribute to equality for genders and for a more productive discussions on the net. The rude people will be driven into their niche 4chan forums. Everywhere are popping up these articles, which propagate healthy discussions and condemn abuse. This makes me happy, cause I know people like you are the minority. Internet will soon be a place for everyone.
It makes me sad for you though, I understand your position and concerns, I just can't feel any sympathy for it. You should probably fight for net neutrality, this is the real danger. When there's no net neutrality, then you really can't make alternative platforms for alternative opinions.
If you're not happy with moderation make your own platform. Nobody is stopping you right now.
May you live in peace.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreWait,"THIS" was Melissa Anelli's story you call propaganda further above, but after you say you "see a call for more of it [censorship] RIGHT HERE" what you're describing is Kathy Sierra's story. Can't you keep the two distinct in your mind?
I asked you where [Melissa Anelli's] story of being criminally stalked in the real world contains any suggestion that internet censorship would even have helped; after all, the phone calls would not have stopped, the mail would not have stopped, the packages arriving would not have stopped, the stalker flying around the world to show up at her home would not have stopped.
And instead you go back to yammering about Kathy Sierra: "A woman with adult children was doxxed...".
Does that mean you withdraw your objections to Melissa Anelli's story appearing here? If so, good, but please say so explicitly, because right now you just seem to be mixing up people in your head.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreThe comment lady is sharing her emotional sob story by making an analogy with the article lady. The article lady suffered from nothing serious at all. This is an analogy which does not exist. Rather, it is an emotional device, which ends up associating internet speech, trolling, with fear of stalking and harrassment. Whether it is purposeful or accidental propaganda doesn't matter, it is propaganda, and it needs to be met with zero empathy (which comes relatively easy for me in this case).
The comment intends for you to mix up people and activities in your head. This is why it is a bad comment. I have no sympathy for this kind of manipulation of emotions, and no empathy for the author. She should go to the police, and not chip in to help make bad policies.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Rather, it is an emotional device, which ends up associating internet speech, trolling, with fear of stalking and harrassment."
At one point it seemed you had agreed that Weev had crossed the bright line between trolling and cyberstalking at the precise moment he went "RW" [Real World] on Kathy Sierra by publishing her home address and SSN together with incentives for others to attack her. Nobody was asking for him (or anyone) to be penalized for his *trolling* activities. It was the *cyberstalking* activity that Kathy complained of in this article... and please note, she deliberately did NOT bring that complaint to his federal sentencing session, when it might have added to his prison term. She brings it up now, when he is OUT of prison, and not at risk of going back INTO prison (as you finally do realize), only to ask that he not be mistakenly glorified as a "good guy". That's all.
As for Melissa Anelli, she DID go to the police, her stalker is awaiting sentencing, and this had nothing to do with "making bad policies".
You've simply "guessed and assumed" wrongly once again.
Odd how that. just. keeps. on. happening.
Your Guesser and Assumer modules seem to be malfunctioning.
Don't you think it might be time to change approaches?
Elysium Hynes Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI hope you never have to deal with a similar situation yourself now please stop adressing me at all i have no intention of engaging you
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "... the author of the article is talking about a guy who posed no serious credible threat to her at all."
"no serious credible threat" -- Did you miss the part about culminating in death threats, in the NYT article?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreHe didn't do this, he just posted some information he found online. You are inferring that he did, as you were meant to, from the article's long stream of suggestive innuendo and propaganda, which is designed to paint a picture of a stalker, without actually saying it. The article doesn't come out say it because it simply isn't true.
This is why the article is so long-winded and has such gas-baggy phrasing, she can't out and out say he was following her, because he really wasn't. She's was never that important, nobody followed her or threatened her in her real-life world. People just got pissed off at her and flamed her online.
What he did is post some personal information stuff he dug up on her on an online forum. It might not even have really been him, he might have just boasted about doing it to falsely take credit from someone else (he has done this before regarding some other hacking claims, for notoriety purposes).
It's not like the guy who really posted it will say "Hey, weev, no! no! That was me! I did it." They'd be happy that he's taking the credit for this. He likes attention. He also might have done it too, I don't know and I don't care. I don't like speculating about other people I don't know anything about, and I certainly don't follow a lynch mob sicced on them like you have been doing.
Faradn Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWeev was just part of it, which I thought was pretty obvious from the piece. His status emboldened people who were willing to go further.
Cuttlefish Faradn • 6 years ago see moreNot only emboldened but disseminated the personal information in order for the threats to be carried out. It is called "incitement".
Mabel Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWait, are you defending the weev dude? Please tell me you're not. If so, your comments are clearly part of the problem, because you're missing the point. Please reconsider what you just said.
This weev guy knew exactly what effect his actions would have. These trolls know that if they dox and tell lies about writers, people will act on it. They know this. It doesn't matter if it's not someone sitting in a car outside your house--online stalking and harassment is still stalking and harassment. There are indeed credible threats to setting other people on someone, which is what doxxing does. It's what Manson did, man. He whipped his followers into a frenzy and told them to do something and they did it.
GP Guest • 6 years ago see moreYou an an amateur whiny brat, but I think you have what it takes to go pro.
GP Guest • 6 years ago see moreAw sweetie, the difference is you were no one to everyone so they didn't publish your private information and make threats against you and your family. But you're right, you're a big man, and mean stupid whiny lady should shut her mouth cause big man said so.
ryan cordova Guest • 6 years ago see moreWhat if those threats are written in pig's blood on your front door?
Just don't read it then?
Ron Maimon ryan cordova • 6 years ago • edited see moreWhat if they were recited on audio book in a car you were driving? What if they were implanted in her head by a microchip? What if SHE WROTE THEM HERSELF.
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago see moreI don't think you understand: this case consists of one very small man against a very big lady.
sdsd99 Guest • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou gave up pointless troll wars when you were 12 during the "pre-internet" BBS days and you only stopped in today after a long hiatus to remind everyone they're still just as stupid as they were back then and you gave up dumb arguments a while ago. Or am i confused
Ron Maimon Mabel • 6 years ago • edited see moreYes, I am defending him totally. And I am not missing the point, I am contradicting your point, and standing apart from your bullcrap, like any good troll should.
He knew the effect of his actions--- he knew that she would get SCARED, and that NO ONE would do JACK to her. Why? Because nobody ever does jack with this crap, there's no money in it, there's no motive to do anything, and psychopaths don't seek out victims by perusing the latest flame-wars.
Online stalking is not real stalking. There is no Manson here, because there are no drug-crazed followers, nor personal influence, nor any actual violent criminal activities at all. People on the internet have no real world power to effect criminal activity. They can harmlessly prank someone, as this guy did, and scare them witless. That's all he can do, and that's all he did. It's not right, but it posed no credible threat to her.
The invention of bogus real-world threats is simply to whip up a frenzy for internet censorship, which is the kiss of death. I won't support it under any circumstances, and I consider you a traitor to the internet for even thinking that there is a problem at all.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Online stalking is not real stalking. ... People on the internet have no real world power to effect criminal activity."
Google CRAIGSLIST STALKING and see what you find. (Hint: Kenneth Edward Kuban is not the only example.) And what about all the privacy violations like credit-card data breaches at Target, Home Depot, JP Morgan, etc -- criminal activity in the real world done by people on the Internet? You don't know what's been going on in the real world, do you?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou know very well I am talking about internet fora where people talk talk, not credit card theft sites where they fraud fraud. Craigslist involves real world operations, and this is the only place where the problems can start.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreOn Craigslist is where Kenneth Kuban posted a woman's home address with incitements for other men to go there and rape her... for which act of cyberstalking he was sentenced by a federal court to five-and-a-half years in prison.
Had he done so on Usenet, or Facebook, or a Disqus comment-thread, that would have been just exactly as much "talk talk" on his part, no more, no less, and would have changed the criminality of his actions not one whit.
So no, Craigslist is not "the only place where the problems can start."
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreThat's definitely a crime, but the sentencing was perhaps excessive (although in this case, it does not chill anything, the impact on normal speech is nil). It depends on the credibility of the threat, obviously this one was taken seriously (I can't judge, I don't know). It is credible when there is an actual threat. I don't see how such a thing could happen on a site with no real-world content, you are speaking about hypotheticals, and hypotheticals make bad law.
In our case, I didn't see an actual threat, simply accusations of such. One must be careful here not to punish offensive speech, rather to punish threatening behavior, and to do so fairly and uniformly. Civil liability seems the best recourse.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "It depends on the credibility of the threat, obviously this one was taken seriously (I can't judge, I don't know)."
Well, yeahhh, more than 100 men, including at least one registered sex offender, showed up at the woman's door expecting free sex, and I'd think they were each a bit disappointed to be turned away after having traveled so far.... Was that not a dangerous situation for the woman?
Now, tell men that a woman's a prostitute, undeserving of any respect, malicious and inflicting pain on the innocent, and you might well get some angry men showing up determined to do more than merely have some friendly sex with her....
And my goodness, you yourself have sure been harping on the "malicious" aspect, haven't you?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreI have no serious problem with the criminal prosecution of this case. It bears no resemblance to the case we are talking about here, as the context is worlds apart. Craigslist is a forum for real-world interactions, and people are looking for real world interaction in the same geographical region.
The context of the doxxing was an international flame war, between parties who are geographically remote. In this case, nobody is looking for real world anything, it would require extreme contortions to make anything real-world happen, and there is zero motivation for such a thing. I am sorry, but be realistic, there is simply zero chance of a real world encounter, and there is no real motive for hostility.
It is impossible to imagine that a violent confrontation could ever happen from anything that went on in a discussion forum, no matter how hostile. I think if you posted the same craigslist comment, with all it's malice and violence, on a discussion forum, you would also get zero responses. It's not a real-world thing, it doesn't spill over.
I know the purpose of this was to create fear. It was frightening for sure, I would be scared too. I am saying that the threat was psychological and not imminent, and there was no real danger, although psychologically it didn't feel that way (it wouldn't to me either).
Further, I have to tell you that you are not a judge or a jury, you have not seen the doxx, you have not been presented unbiased evidence with representation for both sides, you don't even know if he even posted the material (your evidence for this is his demonstrably unreliable bragging), and you have made assumptions of harm by associations and extrapolations that are suggested by the original author of the post above, who is also the victim, so you really aren't getting two sides of the story here.
This is simply the behavior of a lynch mob sicced against a fellow who has negative political skills and cannot defend himself. How can you justify this? You know nothing, and you are standing in judgement.
Cuttlefish Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon is wrong. Weev did incite by publishing personal information associated with intent to harm.
Umberto Octo Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon is a coward hiding in the anonymity provided by his beloved troll-kingdom. Should his private information be found and released, he would immediately claim—in his from his cowardly palace in the troll-kingdom—that his rights were violated and someone should protect him from the troll-killers coming for him.
Ron Maimon Umberto Octo • 6 years ago see moreMy real name is Ron Maimon. I refuse to live in fear.
garyisabusyguy Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see morehttp://quoracast.com/ron-ma...
"When he responds to a question, Ron’s answer is usually propelled to the top. But his harsh demeanor frustrates some users, and others find his science unconvincing. Ron was recently blocked by moderators and is departing from the site."
Some people simply behave like they are in a mosh pit and do not understand why other people do not like getting a bloody nose
Some people have been through so much abuse in their lives, that behaving abusively to other people seems normal
The simple fact is that you can get something useful out of people if you ignore their faults, and some people are unwilling to deal with it.
Ron Maimon garyisabusyguy • 6 years ago see moreHi, yes, that's me. I have not been seriously abused, I just understand the purpose of internet rudeness, and I defend it.
garyisabusyguy Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreBack in the day slam dancing involved bloody noses and the possibility of losing a tooth
Nowadays people get all freaked out if you punch somebody in the face in a mosh pit
Call it civility, call it an influx of weaklings demanding that they get to 'play'... I see some resemblance to the calls to 'tone down' the rhetoric in discussion forums.
Maybe we can long for the days of 'zipping up the flame-proof suit' and holy wars over operating systems, and still extend our thoughts on a topic without being inherently threatening (or 'rude' as you seem to indicate)
Just because I find the idea of somebody trying to jump me in the parking lot invigorating does not mean that should be expected of everybody else
Ron Maimon garyisabusyguy • 6 years ago see moreI am not condoning violence, I am trying to say that online censorship is not needed, and trolling is good.
Doxxing is stupid, counterproductive, and immoral, precisely because it does feel like a personal real-world threat. But it is not as bad as a real real world threat, as those are really, really dangerous.
garyisabusyguy Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see morejust in case you really missed it, I was making a comparison between the aggressiveness of slam dancing (and how it has become less violent and more controlled in modern mosh pits) to the old time usenet traditions of flame wars and trolling (and how that has become less aggressive in the world of moderated discussion lists)
Try civility
Eli Bird Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreBullshit, Ron. Please now also post your social security # and home address.
Ron Maimon Eli Bird • 6 years ago see moreSoc one-hundred sixty-four four-seven-seven-two, ad: sixty nine west 105 st.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "I think if you posted the same craigslist comment, with all it's malice and violence, on a discussion forum, you would also get zero responses. It's not a real-world thing, it doesn't spill over."
Odd you should mention that scenario. It was the Usenet behavior of Diana Napolis that got people concerned enough that she was tracked down and identified in real life -- what could have been equally stalking had it been done with any malicious or harassing intent -- which it was not; basically once the police had seen her ID, she was no longer the anonymous menace people feared.
(See A Web of Intrigue.)
Of course, later she stalked Spielberg and Love Hewitt openly, under her own name, so the loss of anonymity really didn't restrain her....
ryan cordova Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWait, five years in prison is excessive for inciting a rape?
Yeah we're done here. You clearly have an absurdly weak set of morals and should reevaluate whether you really deserve to live in a civilized society.
Ron Maimon ryan cordova • 6 years ago • edited see more5 years is usually the sentence meted out for conspiracy to murder. In this case, the inciting was ineffectual, as it requires that a rapist read and act upon the comment, he didn't hire somebody to commit the rape, he suggested it on a much more dangerous internet forum than this one.
A 5 year sentence was justified because of the previous pattern of abuse and battery, if this had been an isolated incident, it wouldn't merit 5 years.
Your comment above is an example of the type of heckling meted out as propaganda against those who hold unpopular opinions. In this case, the opinion isn't particularly unpopular, so your attempted attack is ineffectual, but the fact that you attempt is revealing. There is nothing wrong with me, dude, there is something seriously wrong with you.
RyYYZ Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreMany unpopular opinions are just plain wrong, and deserve to be heckled. 9/11 conspiracy nuts deserve to be mocked as the fruitcakes they are, for example. Not because there aren't questions about what happened that day, but because typically the conspiracies they believe make little sense, are easily debunked with nothing more than a little thought, or are self-contradictory.
Ron Maimon RyYYZ • 6 years ago see moreThat's exactly the opposite of the truth, dickwad, and your example of "deserve to be heckled" shows why you need trolls. There are very few questions left about what happened that day, it's been sorted out for a long time now. The fellow in charge of the military drills of that morning adjusted the drills to fake a terrorist attack, with no help whatsoever from any actual muslims. This is obvious from looking at the drills, and it is also obvious from looking at the evidence.
But idiots like yourself have been trying to silence clever people with evidence for a long time, and the attacks are of the form of "deserved heckling". It is not deserved, but it is also not a problem, so long as the truthers heckle back stronger, you cockroach.
Mukt Raven • 6 years ago see moreCourts and laws should clear their act up.
What you describe was more criminal than mere cyber-stalking ... it was a criminal conspiracy at the minimum.
Mukt Raven • 6 years ago see moreWhen you involve hacking, we are talking of a different crime level already. No?
Get this: Stalking is different from online stalking, which in turn is different from plain old trolling.Human language has different words for different phenomena for a reason.
ryan cordova Mukt • 6 years ago see moreThe court of law establishes the meaning behind those words.
There is no separation between stalking and online stalking. Just because you use different words for them, they're both still illegal.
Mukt ryan cordova • 6 years ago • edited see moreIf they have no difference, no one would need to use a separate word for them.
ryan cordova Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more"nor any actual violent criminal activities at all."
You realize that death threats are, by definition, violent criminal activities, right?
Ron Maimon ryan cordova • 6 years ago see moreNot when they are online ineffectual nothings. Go jump off a bridge Ryan.
RyYYZ Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreThat's not a threat, it's a suggestion. Like "go f#@$ yourself".
On the other "Ran Maimon, I know your address and you better grow eyes in the back of your head, because one of these days you'll get what's coming to you" is a threat. One that you might take seriously or not, depending on the context. If you had multiple people posting such things, along with maybe pictures of the front of your house and/or place of employment, you might take them seriously.
Ron Maimon RyYYZ • 6 years ago • edited see moreI won't, because I am not that important. Hardly anyone online is. The ones who are important have real threats which are more serious, that don't involve online bluster. Also, it's not "Ran", it's "Ron", really.
Ash Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWhat's the functional difference if I write something hateful and send it, or find something hateful and send it? It's still results in someone receiving something hateful.
And frankly, the "I was only pretending I said it" defence is pretty weak too. So what? He chose to pretend he said it, so he's clearly comfortable with the idea of people thinking he said it.
"I don't know and I don't care."
You've spent an awful lot of time talking about it, and minimising his culpability for it.
Mukt Raven • 6 years ago see moreShe chooses to call that trolling ... not stalking, not criminal intimidation, not a dozen more applicable things.
At one point one must acknowledge that things have move beyond the point of trolling. It seems that the author doesn't want to do that.Mukt Faradn • 6 years ago see morePretty sure she continues to see and call the problem as trolling.
Faradn Mukt • 6 years ago see moreThe point is that trolling can easily turn into those other things you listed.
Ron Maimon Faradn • 6 years ago • edited see moreThe point is that NO TROLLING CAN'T easily turn into those other things, it hardly ever turns into those other things, you have to dig and dig and pretend and exaggerate in order to make it seem so. It is simply PROPAGANDA to pretend it can. The examples cited are extremely unusual, even so they are not comparatively damaging compared to real world events, and they are simply being spun and used as a pretext to get less educated people to try to restrict others freedom to write hostile material.
I write hostile material, and it is an essential and important thing to do. It is the only way we have to prevent a new Aristotlism, criminal government actions, or the mental damage of dogma.
Faradn Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreYou don't have to dig. It happens routinely to women who get noticed online for talking about gender issues, or for their work in fields dominated by men. In other words, to women seeking to change the status quo or who change the status quo by their mere existence.
No one is trying to take away your right to be a douche-on. I for one reserve the right to call you out on it though.
Ron Maimon Faradn • 6 years ago see moreThe insults is a result of conservative hostility toward feminism. Feminism is a form of Marxism subversion of power structures, and there are powerful opponents for this reason. I have seen feminism defended viciously and cogently, it is not so hard to do "The SCUM Manifesto" was probably the first real troll ever written, I consider this one of the best models for what trolling can and should be, and it was written in support of feminism by a woman.
Since defending feminism is basically defending Karl Marx himself, Feminism is the pinnacle of Marxist thought really, as the power structures touch on our very biology, the same power structures that oppose hackers coalesce around feminists. The attacks are stupid lame insults, and overcoming them is trivial. You simply have to challenge male authority more crassly than the anti-feminist trolls. They simply cannot win on a level playing field, as they are using social authority as a crutch, and trolling sweeps that crutch right out from under them.
Valerie Solenas showed how to do it by example:
"You would swim through a river of snot, wade through a puddle of diarrhea just to get a chance to screw" "You are an incomplete female, a walking abortion", etc. This is how you remove male authority, it is no different from any other authority, although it seems more menacing for obsolete biological reasons.
The online hostility is more difficult for those who are more empathetic, this is true, but it is not a serious problem, as a few anti-empathy exercizes can easily cure this. There are fine female trolls, some of the best, and the defenses of feminism are ultimately easy, because the feminists are telling the truth.
Faradn Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreHarsh language and snark aren't necessarily trolling--but I suppose you're right that trolling can be used for good, like with Anonymous (sometimes). When trolling is directed at women for being outspoken women though, it's hard for me to see the good, and in those cases it tends to escalate.
Steve Nordquist Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreHokay...got Utopia or Bust here, and Doomed by Chuck Palahnik with some fun boorism, and they just got wired together weird. Thanks for weighing uh...in?
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "'The SCUM Manifesto' was probably the first real troll ever written, I consider this one of the best models for what trolling can and should be...."
And its author, Valerie Solanas, later tried to murder Andy Warhol, shooting at him three times and wounding him once. Paranoid schizophrenia, like her fellow troll Diana Napolis. She irrationally thought Warhol and a publisher were conspiring to steal her work.
Weren't you telling us that trolling never leads to violence?
Yet the *first* and *one of the best* trolls was a homicidal lunatic....
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYes, I know she had a breakdown, probably drug induced, it's was the destruction of a great voice. SCUM wasn't the cause, this was many years later. It was probably drugs, alienation, and personal money problems between her and Warhol, and it's a terrible story. I didn't know she was a schitzophrenic, the story is more plausible now, I couldn't figure out how such an enlightened writer became an attempted murderer.
That drug induced conversion of alternative viewpoints into homicidal rage happened a lot in the 1960s, for example, the SDS to the Weathermen, which finally ended with that horrible Brinks holdup in 1980 which murdered a security guard. That's the main problem of the 1960s--- what mechanism do you have to allow the speech, while preventing the violence?
The solution was found in 1969, but nobody noticed for a while. The internet is the solution to this problem. This is why trollings place is online, where such things have to surmount a nearly insurmountable barrier to ever spill over into violence.
The internet allows the humanities revolutions and also the scientific revolutions of the 1960s to be widely understood and accepted without the violence and drug damage that destroyed it.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "This is why trollings place is online, where such things have to surmount a nearly insurmountable barrier to ever spill over into violence."
But it isn't at all insurmountable! I gave you links for a number of "Internet homicides" -- Facebook unfriending spills over into double murder, Twitter argument spills over into attempted murder, fansite infatuation spills over into stabbing, etc. -- just as easily as the offline relationship of Solanas and Warhol spilled over into violence.
There's nothing magical about the Internet that keeps human relationships from turning sour and violent, or (as much to the point) keeps a homicidal lunatic from wanting to track down his victim.
Nearly insurmountable barrier? Melissa's stalker had first contact through the 'Net from around the world... and wound up flying from New Zealand to New York in pursuit of her target. The bulk of the planet wasn't a barrier to her! On the other hand, Kenneth Kuban didn't have to leave his home, sending over 100 other men as his proxies to harass his ex-girlfriend in person. Weev provoked other people into sending death threats to Kathy Sierra, with no assurance whether some of them might likewise make a personal visit. (Though he kindly provided them with her home address.)
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see more"Nearly insurmountable" is enough. What weev did can't be compared in severity to what Kuban did, sorry. That's just rhetoric. It only felt psychologically similar to the victim. None of these are reasonable cases to base your policy on, the barrier to violence is really nearly insurmountable.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more"I didn't know she was a schitzophrenic, the story is more plausible now, I couldn't figure out how such an enlightened writer became an attempted murderer."
While her paranoid schizophenia might have been latent as a natural problem, it could also have been triggered or amplified by prolonged stimulant (e.g. amphetamine) use -- that's what pushed Ayn Rand's increasing paranoia in her later years.
Mukt Faradn • 6 years ago see moreThat is a highly subjective opinion.
Accuracy of order similar to "most rich people are evil" or " most poor people are criminals".
Synkretic Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon, I have read several of your comments here, and I want to respond in a way that is capable of penetrating your hardened exterior. I know I am unlikely to succeed. I'm not familiar with the background on this story or the "responsibility" said trolls have to "protect" the internet. So, I don't claim to understand the tech side of this issue.
However, I do understand the human side of being verbally abused all too well. Just because it can't necessarily be prosecuted as a crime doesn't mean that it won't leave a lasting and devastating impact on one's psyche. Why does the trolling have to go so far as to "scare them witless" (your words)? Why not leave threats of rape, death, and such out of it? Why not exclusively attack ideas instead of people? If the end result of scaring people witless is to chill their free speech or silence them altogether doesn't that create an ironically hypocritical situation? I just don't get it.
Cuttlefish Synkretic • 6 years ago see moreIt is easy. The sociopaths have found a cause and now they are rebels with a cause. It's ridiculous, of course, but insanity cannot be reasoned with.
Ron Maimon Cuttlefish • 6 years ago • edited see moreThe cause is ensuring a free internet for all. You guys with your coordinated tag team comments are crazy. I am a sincere person trying to keep the internet open. There was no actual imminent threat from the discussions EVEN WITH THE DOXXING. The doxxing is unethical, but this is no cause for censorship of discussions, but simply for a lawsuit.
Cuttlefish Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreYou are not sincere when you call me stupid. If you REALLY wanted free internet for all then you would worry about net neutrality.
Ron Maimon Cuttlefish • 6 years ago • edited see moreI do worry about net neutrality. I removed that comment ten seconds after I posted it, it was impulsive, and I was stupid. Sorry.
ryan cordova Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreFreedom is a fun ideal to hold up but only extremists think freedom should be absolute.
Murder is a freedom that's restricted by law. As is theft. Should we abolish both of those in the name of living truly free lives as well?
Ron Maimon ryan cordova • 6 years ago see moreFreedom on the internet is absolute, because you can't murder within the confines of the internet.
Kevin Alexander Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreSomething that you have failed to realize is that besides him simply issuing "insubstantial" threats online this person also gave out personal information about her as well as calling for people to send her things WHICH THEY DID. When you have someone acting as this kind of hatemonger it can turn into a cult type following and very easily bridge from online to the real world. This may seem like an extreme example to you (if you are even old enough to remember it) but Charles Manson never committed murder himself, however it shows that with enough influence even "harmless" internet threats and suggestions can come to fruition when you can make people believe in them strongly enough. A current example is the stabbing to appease the fictional online character "Slender Man". In an time when more and more of our lives revolve around and are influenced by the internet can you honestly say that someone directing such incredible hate towards a person by someone with as much internet influence as Weev will not have very visible real world consequences? Here is another thing for you to think on:
Assault
At Common Law, an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact.If he was able to convince people to mail her items can you really say its a huge stretch for someone to act on one of the more violent things he suggested happen to her? As much as you would like to hide behind the idea of internet harassment being harmless the online world and the real world are getting closer and closer to each other every day.
Ron Maimon Kevin Alexander • 6 years ago • edited see moreYeah, yeah. That's what the article was implanting in your head. That's not what happened at all. There was a heated flame war, and a kid made a lady leave by posting her home address, and she got scared.
It's not right, but it's not a credible threat of rape or murder either. It just is what it is. It also has absolutely nothing to do with internet trolling, which is something extremely good that everyone should do.
Kevin Alexander Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreThe problem is that he took it far beyond mere trolling. I am a gamer myself and as such I have trolled and been trolled many times, most of it well deserved, and to be honest I gloried in it. However, there is a limit to what is acceptable to do. First and foremost what the hell gives someone the right to bring a persons young children into something like this regardless of how much he disliked this woman? Second, since you like to appear all internet savvy, you do realize just how much damage can be done to a person with "just" a name, address, social security number and so forth? For instance, with just that info and tracing your IP address to use with a masking program someone could not only simply steal your identity but also get someone in huge legal trouble especially when dealing with people that understand hacking and such far better than I do. For example what would stop someone from taking out a credit card under your name and using a computer masked with your IP address to purchase something illegal and have it shipped to you? Not real hard for people more skilled online than I am. One simple anonymous tip later and unless you get an amazing lawyer you get to spend a few years in jail from an open and shut case in which YOU got a credit card, and YOU purchased something illegal from YOUR computer which was then sent to YOUR house. I understand that this example is not exactly likely but i am trying to show you that unlike Vegas not everything that happens online stays online. Nor am I saying that trolling is bad, by all means troll away and enjoy the hell out of yourself doing it, BUT HAVE A TINY BIT OF CLASS. Attack a persons logic, character, facts and so on if you feel you must but leave their family, safety, and well-being out of it.
Ron Maimon Kevin Alexander • 6 years ago • edited see moreOf course it crossed A line, just not the same line that you think it crossed.
He didn't do anything regarding her children, that's another false inference painted in your head. She said "this happens" not "this happened to me". Why??
I wonder I wonder.
Maybe because it DIDN'T HAPPEN TO HER. What happened to her was a flame-fest because of her MENTALLY CHALLENGED POSITION regarding internet censorship, followed by a doxxing.
Doxxing is not 100% safe, but the risk is INFINITESIMAL compared to any real threat. The article compares it to incitement to murder or invitation to rape. The article is mentally retarded propaganda, it might as well have been written in crap on toilet paper in an asylum.
The level of danger was essentially tiny,, and the connection to the practice of "trolling" is nonexistent. I am merely pointing this out to do counterpropaganda, but I don't know why I waste my time on anyone who would fall for this drivel.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see more"... you can't murder within the confines of the internet."
Good thing no-one died from seizure-related injuries during that epilepsy trolling, 'cuz that sure would've seemed like murder.
I suppose "you can't rape within the confines of the Internet" either, but Kenneth Kuban sure tried, what with sending over 100 sex-hungry men to his ex-girlfriend's door believing she wanted them. Including at least one registered sex offender.
Weev's exploit was a near-reprise of Kuban's, only instead of a sex-invitation he used false accusations to incite death threats.
Had anyone followed through -- and be honest, you have no guarantee that the audience in any given forum on any given day does NOT include someone homicidal enough to follow through -- that sure would've seemed like murder, too.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreWeev's exploit was nothing like Kuban's, it only psychologically seemed that way to the victim, and she is making it psychologically seem that way to you, using effective emotional writing, aka propaganda. His actions were wrong, but they were far less dangerous than Kubans, and there is a propaganda team of nitwits here trying to make it seem different by repetition and mutual masturbation.
But this is ultimately ineffectual, because a person who is telling the truth with a few hours to spare can counteract the propaganda by simply standing firmly against it. That person is invariably labelled a troll, I am trying to be that person, and the first and most important freedom, the freedom to mount this challenge, is what you are trying to take away.
I think "over my dead body" is not an understatement in this case.
Miranda Ghrist Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreInteresting you're pointing out the psychological propagandist theme to this article. I noticed it too. It's like the work of a failed facebook data scientist, and too manipulative to earn much sympathy.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Weev's exploit was nothing like Kuban's...."
(1) Posting her home address
(2) Posting incentive for others to harass her
(a) Kuban - sexual incentive
(b) weev - violence incentive (w/ charge of prostitution)
Thus an implied risk of rape in either case."His actions were wrong, but they were far less dangerous than Kubans"
Kuban had men looking for free sex.
Weev had people (unknown gender) sending death threats, and it is utterly unknown how many of them were prepared to follow through.Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreNo, no, you little mental-head, this is simply not true. Kuban was posting in a place for sex solicitation, with the intent of producing either an attack or a serious risk of atttack. Our buddy weev was possibly posting harassing nonsense together with not-so-sensitive publically available information, in an attempt to scare somebody into going away. Both are bad, but one is a teeny weeny bit worse, doncha think?
The "death threats" were nothing to do with weev, they were people talking trash to her on the thread, because of her support of censorship, with no actual threat of violence, as follows: Raven, you should be humped by a chimp and crushed by an elephant. Your remains should be scattered in the ocean, and feed the algae, which would be a step-up, evolutionarily speaking.
Threats of rape and murder. You are free to sic the world on me now.
The impression you got from reading her piece was different, but this is what was going on.
In any case, this is a pointless conversation, as you are a bit too limited to understand what is going on here. Online, the real concern is the shutting up of suppressed voices, and the silencing of actual forceful dissent.
I suggest you go breed with yourself.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreIn an effort to keep arguing that "Weev's exploit was nothing like Kuban's", Ron Maimon says: "Kuban was posting in a place for sex solicitation..." [whereas] "Our buddy weev was possibly posting harassing nonsense together with not-so-sensitive publically available information...".
Wow. The location of one was not the content of the other.
Next point of comparison? [Kuban] "... with the intent of producing either an attack or a serious risk of atttack." [vs. weez] "... in an attempt to scare somebody into going away."
Weez's accusations resulted in a volume of death threats and other harassment -- as surely he knew they would. As with Kuban's Craigslist ads reaching at least one registered sex offender, weev's posts risked reaching at least one reader sufficiently unbalanced to follow through on a death threat. It was precisely that "serious risk of attack" he used to scare her away.
As with newspaper or TV ads, you don't know who's going to receive your message, or how seriously they'll take it. So yeah, you were Only Joking when you said "Kill so-and-so"... but if someone does it and says they acted on your instructions, good luck telling the court it was only a joke. No-one is likely to laugh.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreWeev's actions DID NOT result in a single death threat. The "death threats" were internet nonsense that were separate and independent from the doxxing, and were ongoing before, in the flame war which predated the doxxing. You are being misled by the purposefully vague propagandistic phrasing in the article.
The comparison of place and wording is for you to judge. There is a world of difference here, you just can't see it. In Kuban's case, something could happen, in weev's case, realistically speaking, nothing could happen.
The thing he used to scare her away is PARANOID FEAR of the internet spilling into the real world, a fear everyone knows, and one which is nearly universally unjustified.
That doesn't make it right, but it isn't the same as Kuban, not by a long shot.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "Weev's actions DID NOT result in a single death threat. The 'death threats' were internet nonsense that were separate and independent...."
I would rely upon your confident, expert reassurance, except:
"Actually, to tell the truth, I was just guessing. I don't know anything about this."
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreYeah, yeah, mental head, I GUESSED, of course, because I'm not an involved party, but I GUESSED EXACTLY RIGHT, or else my guessing would have been refuted long ago, instead of supported.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreYour guessing keeps being refuted. You keep ignoring that.
Moore Raven • 6 years ago see moreSee Shelly Powers article on her Burningbird blog--titled "Posse." It's the best and most accurate thing written so far about the recent Weev/Sierra situation. Also, Sierra was 50 and her kids were in their 20s in 2007 and not living with her. There is zero evidence anyone ever threatened her kids, or that Weev ever threatened her. She is an emotional and persuasive writer and does sort of make stuff up for effect, ramps it up...and why is no one talking about the fact she was on Twitter with 19k followers in 2009 or 10 and nuked her account. No one harassed her then or this time. Someone needs to do an in-depth article about her. The World's Best-Known Internet Victim ain't all she appears to be.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreMy guessing keeps being ATTACKED POLITICALLY, not REFUTED FACTUALLY. Trolls are people who know the difference between the two, and don't give up fighting with propaganda and insult until the former turns into the latter.
Don't hold your breath in this case, I know exactly what happened here.
Cutjunkie Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreFreedom does not equal anonymity. Different concepts. If you want to fight for a free and open internet then fight for the people who speak on the record not hide behind a cowardly mask.
Ron Maimon Cutjunkie • 6 years ago see moreI will fight for all of them equally. Anonymity is important when one could get killed for a position (for real, not trolling threats from powerless nobodies, but actual assassination related to damaging leaks and so forth)
xiaozi Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWrong. Ever hear of Death by a Thousand Cuts? Well, there already have been cyber-bully related suicides and if you don't know about this you should seek help with the ignorance and mistaken belief in the *absolute* of anything.
Ron Maimon xiaozi • 6 years ago see moreThere's been one, it's true, but one depressed teen does not get to impose censorship policy for everyone else in the world through a monumentally stupid act.
ryan cordova Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreAlso, where is the imminent threat to the freedom of the internet?
Ron Maimon ryan cordova • 6 years ago • edited see moreThe imminent threat is right there in this article. Trolling is a human right.
Ron Maimon Ash • 6 years ago • edited see moreSure. There are lots of dogmas in the world, for example
1. 9/11 was done by 19 muslims, not by the coordinator of the military drills of that day.
2. Petroleum is made from ancient marine plants, not from chemistry in the high-pressure environment of the mantle.
3. Large classical black holes are purely one-way, and the Cauchy horizon evolves to a spacelike singularity under perturbations.
4. Cold fusion is a phony phenomenon
5. Self-modifying computer code is a bad practice
6. Bourgeoise power structures are necessary and justified so as to produce progress.The only way to challenge to these dogmas is by a discourse which is open and free, and open to anyone. The internet provides this. On previous media, powerful gatekeepers stopped you from hard criticism, and any new idea needed to fight in obscurity for decades to overcome this political authority barrier.
Hard criticism with insults and ridicule overcomes the authority barrier immediately. But the hard criticism is extremely damaging to abstract power, and leads groups of powerful people to accuse you of trolling, no matter what the truth is. This is not an abstract rarefied concern, the accusations of trolling occur when a person who has no power challenges an established authority.
This is what happened in this case too. The person writing this article is an authority in her field, the challenge came from a powerless young man seriously lacking in real-world social skills, but strong with the internet skills. Using an unusual psychologically intimidating tactic, a tactic which is simply not acceptable (but applied regularly toward the powerless anyway), he intimidated an authority into backing down online.
This was both highly unethical and counterproductive, but it ultimately did not amount to a credible imminent danger to the author, although it felt like that to her, and she is making it feel that way to you.
The article is a propaganda piece with a goal of producing internet restrictions on speech. This cannot be abided, as the internet is valuable precisely because it allows challenge to authority. You may not like it when that challenge comes from a person you disagree with who holds obnoxious discredited views, but this challenge is what is most important to preserve. An accepted truth does not need additional external political defense, it can defend itself very well, it is established. It is the new truths, the currently unpopular truths, that require defense. To defend them requires a strong defense of those who are putting out unpopular untruths. The method of sorting out true from false is a long debate, and trolling is the component that levels out the authority playing field, so that the debate is over the objective evidence, and not over the politics.
Trolling is the defense of new or marginalized ideas against the authority of those who oppose them. It is the mechanism by which new ideas politically flex their muscles. It does not imply any real-world threat, any such real-world association is imaginary in all but a handful of extremely pathological cases, although it does involve a real psychological attack, in that it is attacking world-views which are dominant or popular.
One must preserve the right to troll, as it is simply the right to remove authority from those who have power. The propaganda against trolling always comes from established voices with good social skills and a high position, because in order to get to an established high position one must forsake hard outsider positions. This is a serious obstacle to the progress of humanity, it must be resisted.
Authority is what Galileo was fighting against when he trolled the Aristotelians in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World. Trolling is what Linus Torvalds did to Andrew Tannenbaum in the Operating Systems Microkernel debate, the famous Tannenbaum Torvalds debate of 1992. It is what everyone who has a new idea must do to reconfigure authority structures, and preventing it is a serious offense against the internet's very structure.
If you aren't trolling in defense of a marginalized position you agree with, what the heck is the purpose of your online activity? Supporting the status quo? You don't need to do support it, it's already the status quo. The internet is for debate over marginalized opinions.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreAgain you are extending the term "troll" to include cyberstalking.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreNo, the author is extending the term "troll" to include cyberstalking.
Chris Allen Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreBasically, this, Ron:
1. You don't comprehend the difference between arguing over an idea, and deliberately harassing and threatening another human being, and encouraging others to do likewise.
2. You refuse to admit that trolling is abuse and abusive and is directed at the *person* behind the keyboard, rather than being an actual logical *or* emotional argument about a *topic*.
3. You assume and attempt to frame all this as "the underdog fighting authority," when in reality the targets of trolling are almost never anyone actually *in* a position of authority, and in fact, are often people who are challenging authority *themselves* with their arguments and points.
4. You insist there is a complete and total separation between online activity and "real life"---all while ignoring that in real life, when our identity is attacked through public speaking or through public writings (newspaper, etc.) we can sue for whichever is applicable, slander or libel---because it has long been recognized that spreading deliberate lies with intent to harm a person's identity is a crime.
Somehow the utterly logical idea that doing the same thing in an internet setting is *also* a crime seems to elude you: all those (internet trolling, slander, libel) are deliberate lying attacks on a person's public identity; it simply does not matter if the medium is over a microphone or in a video interview, printed in a newspaper or magazine, or in words and images on the internet. Slander and libel laws came about in recognition of the fact that people live and do business based in part upon their public identity and reputation; when a person LIES to damage those, the lies can damage lives and livelihoods.
5. You refuse to admit that incitement of others to do a crime is in itself a crime. If I stand on a street corner with a stack of flyers with your photo and address on it, handing them out and telling everyone who passes by that you "raped 23 children as a priest in the Congo, as well as torturing and sexually mutilating them, but got off on a technicality," that I caught you enticing your neighbor's children to come into your house and stopped it, that you are a danger to every child in this area, and that the authorities refuse to do anything until they catch you red-handed, and begging those people "Please! for the safety of this town and your own children, won't SOMEONE *do* something about this man? He doesn't deserve to live"---so if I did something like that (all lies, by the way) and later a person who had heard me and seen the flyer shows up at your house with a 12-gauge shotgun and blows your head off the moment you open the door.. you (or I guess your ghost) wouldn't hold me partly responsible, and of course you think the law wouldn't either, right? Just a sad set of circumstances, where I was rightly "trolling" you because I need to puncture your authority (you being an "authority" in my eyes because you called the cops on me for playing my stereo too loud), and sadly some dumb schmuck got so incensed over what I said that he actually went and did what I was asking him to do.
6. After reading several of your responses here, I don't think it's a case of you not understanding all this at all---instead, I think you're one of the troll-supporters she talked about: the ones who try to use warped "reasoning" to support criminal behavior and re-frame it as "good" and even, "defending free speech."
As someone noted above, society puts outside limits on all kinds of things (i.e. you aren't free to murder someone without consequences), and the reason is simple: when a "freedom" is taken to the extreme that it violates another's rights and/or causes them real harm (which includes slander and libel, remember), it has shifted from a freedom to express into a freedom to abuse and harm others. Should a society allow total freedom in all things, it will quickly deteriorate and fall apart---because a society is nothing more and nothing less than a group agreement to co-exist peacefully and while observing the rights of others. All receive the same rights *and* protections under the law. In essence, a person can swing their fist in any fashion they want---except when they're hitting someone else's nose. Your right to swing your fist *stops* at my nose.
At this point, I think it's pretty clear that you don't respect that right for others, that you advocate for a "total freedom" approach---which basically means, you're either a sociopath who wants to enable other sociopaths to harm others with no consequences, or you're a pure anarchist. Either way, sorry bub---that's simply not how societies survive. An individual's freedoms must always be balanced by the freedom of *others* as well, which includes freedom from assault and harm. It's called "reciprocity," and it one of the pillars of moral behavior (the others are empathy, cooperation, and fairness).
Moral behavior is a survival trait that helps species to survive, countering the strongest threat to individuals: other individuals of the same species who have the exact same needs, etc. Humankind's development of it was a key survival trait for us, but we didn't corner the market on it: several of the more intelligent animal species *also* have this basic system of morality in behaviors. Here, take a look:
Ron Maimon Chris Allen • 6 years ago • edited see moreSorry to you bub, it's internet times, and you can't stop the freedom.
1. I do understand the difference between arguing and harassing. Trolling is arguing and Doxxing is harassing. It is the author of this article that conflates the two activities, not me.
2. I indeed do refuse to admit that personal attacks have no place. Personal attacks are essential for exactly one special all-important purpose: Direct personal attacks are the only method which may be effectively used to remove authority from a position.
Authority is not symmetric. If I come to you with a new idea, for example, that black holes emit matter nothermally (sorry to pick the same stuff every time, but it's not like I have a hundred new ideas), every article you read, every credentialed expert you consult, will tell you that this is false. But suppose it is not false (it is probably true), then it is not a wrong idea, it is just a new idea. How do you argue for such an idea online? You will be heckled authoritatively by experts, you will be made to look silly, and ignorant people will oppose you with ridicule, ridicule which will not be called "trolling" because you will be seen as an idiot.
The way to make people stop looking at you and at the experts, and look at the evidence, is by direct personal insults. The goal is to remove authority from the authorities, as momentarily happens when they are insulted. You have to say "those authorities are bozos, they have no evidence for this", and then the person will listen to you for a little bit. Then you present the evidence, and let the chips fall where they may. If you are right, you have made progress. If the authorities are right, no harm done.
But this simply cannot happen without the direct challenge to authority. This is Galileo's lesson.
I should point out that authority is sometimes used by someone who MISINTERPRETS what the authority is saying, and then some heckling quickly corrects the misperception. The correction simply does not happen without the ridicule. This is the purpose of ridicule, it is why it exists.
3. The targets of trolling are ALWAYS those in a position of authority, or those who are arguing in their name online. People who are challenging authority are heckled, but this heckling is simply never called trolling. It is called "removing crap", "cleaning up nonsense", or "laughing at the yahoos". It is simply natural for the powerful position to mock, you don't even notice it when you agree with the position.
4. I don't insist on the separation. Libel laws and lawsuits are perfectly fine to use for online harassment. I dispute that trolling constitutes any kind of harassment, simply because it doesn't.
5. Yes, incitement to violence is a serious crime, but that is not what was going on here. What was going on here was an intimidation using apparent incitement. She was not in any significant real danger. It was still unethical, it could still be grounds for a lawsuit, but this is not the issue we are talking about. The real harrassment of doxxing is being purposefully conflated with trolling. Trolling is essential. Doxxing is a no-no.
6. I am not only a TROLL SUPPORTER, I am an OUT AND OUT TROLL, and I insist you be one too.
Miranda Ghrist Chris Allen • 6 years ago see moreSuch Pathos, so status quo.
1. Simile
2. Dysphemism
3. Eristic
4. Cookery
...5 through ??? tldr
conclusion: Bathos.
Ash Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreYou advocate trolling in this post, but early on in the post, you say:
"But the hard criticism is extremely damaging to abstract power, and leads groups of powerful people to accuse you of trolling, no matter what the truth is."
So, which is it? Your point is internally inconsistent, and before you fix that, it is impossible to engage with meaningfully.
I might also add that you go beyond answering the question asked, and gone back atop your soapbox again, to make the point you wanted to make. This is telling.
Simply put, you are on broadcast.
What Ho! Studio Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreYour refusal to understand that a threat is anything less than bodily harm is galling, not to mention that your insistence that FREE AND OPEN INTERNET is more important than people who are threatened and stalked over it is disturbing. I've read most of your comments. Your language is reasonable but your logic is not. At this point I don't care about weev or the author; I am worried about you. You are being buried under an avalanche of people trying to remind you of basic human decency, that we don't put others in danger just because we can, and yet you keep digging the hole deeper. You are not a hero of free Internet and communication. You are deliberately missing the point and your refusal to come back to it hurts you.
Ron Maimon What Ho! Studio • 6 years ago • edited see moreFree and open internet is more important to me than MY OWN LIFE. I don't care about how it hurts me. I will gladly risk my life, my health, and my sanity for this principle, and defend less than savory characters against propaganda attacks, even if they think of me as a racial abortion, as he seems to do. The principle is simply too important to allow it to be manipulated by propagandists.
The people here are FORGETTING basic human decency, and substituting a lynch mob mentality for it. They are following propaganda laced political attack against a powerless and politically incompetent man.
The "avalanche of people" does not bother me, as I do not poll people for my morality. But in this case I am not alone, as this article is simply a focal point for people with an agenda to destroy online freedom, and in reality, these people are in the minority.
People know of what importance the internet is, and how important the lack of censorship is. If they don't, I am reminding them.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI think basic human decency excludes letting women and children be stalked and harassed with death threats etc. in their own homes -- and defending such actions.
That you call people who want such actions to carry a *prison term* a "lynch mob" is an example of your hyperbole making your language meaningless. Lynch mobs take men *out* of prison and *kill* them -- which is exactly *not* what's proposed here.
That you portray yourself as a champion of human decency for defending cyberstalking -- and attacking the victim as "malicious"! -- is an utter moral inversion, and quite sickening to watch.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt may be sickening, I don't care. I should continue until you snap out of the delusion.
The threats were largely imaginary, they didn't really exist as credible imminent threats, as they do when an abusive husband threatens his wife. Doxxing can carry a short prison term, I don't think that is wrong, although this is not what is being discussed here. The doxxing is simply a focus for the propaganda for internet censorship, and the villifying of those who make harsh comments online.
The psychological pain that the doxxing caused is real, but here it is used as simple propaganda. The threat was nearly entirely psychological and imaginary. There were no direct real-world threats, only the indirect implied threat that those online harrassers would somehow get motivated to use the doxx to seek out and commit violent crimes against a person they don't personally know living hundreds or thousands of miles away. While there are a handful of such mentally disturbed individuals, you can usually count them on the fingers of one hand.
This threat is not entirely without cause, it is a real threat, but it is not of the same calibre as a threat from someone you have a real-world interaction with, as there is simply no reasonable expectation that there is any motive or ability here to commit any violent crime. The threats in the real world are simply much more serious than this.
The context of this discussion is to mount a propaganda war against a politically unpopular powerless hacker with extremely offensive views. I don't like this context.
The other context of this discussion is that internet discussions are problematic because they are dominated by trolls. I vehemently disagree with this, because it is the long trolling which is the only useful thing in the internet discussions. The trolls are challenging the authority of experts, they are challenging the powerful dogmas at the basis of our knowledge/ structure, and one must confront each such challenge so that progress can happen, and wrong dogmas jettisonned.
Mark Twain used to say "What gets us in trouble isn't the things we don't know, but the things we know that just ain't so". A troll is someone who is trying to tell you that a thing you know just ain't so. He might be wrong, in which case you can demonstrate it, but rarely, this troll is right, and then you have had a breakthrough.
These breakthroughs simply require uncensored no-holds-barred debate, as you see in the Tannenbaum Torvalds debate, or in the physics literature disputes regarding string theory. There is no substitute for this power-challenging attacks, they are the only mechanism to dismantle the authority from an idea.
If the idea is correct, it will withstand the challenge, and regrow it's authority quickly. It is for the cases where the idea is incorrect that the freedom must be preserved.
Weev is a powerless fellow using dirty methods to win propaganda wars at any cost, including psychologically disturbing borderline criminal activity. This is not necessary, it is counterproductive. All you need to do is tell the truth bluntly, and seek no compromise. But his example is used to chill speech in general, and this one cannot abide.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Doxxing can carry a short prison term, I don't think that is wrong, although this is not what is being discussed here."
No? You've said you were dead-set against prison for weev even if he did doxx Kathy Sierra just as he had claimed -- and that certainly is a major part of what is being discussed here.
The other part was attaching to the doxx such inflammatory false accusations as would (and did) incite death threats from other people -- who now knew her and her children's home address.
And with the sanity of all those other people being unknown and undeterminable -- but how sane are people who issue death threats based on unverified accusations? -- Kathy Sierra had reason to wonder whether crazy people were now targeting her. Maybe not as many as had threatened... but it only takes one. Crazy stalkers really happen. Witness Diana Napolis.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreWhatever you say. I oppose prison for weev because she didn't press charges, and he's already been in prison for absolutely nothing for a long time. If someone passed an anti-doxxing law, I wouldn't be so adamently against it, but I think current law is sufficient to deal with it. Just sue.
I know she felt threatened, I am not disputing it was a bad thing to do. I am disputing that it has anything to do with trolling, or that weev should be publically harassed over this any more than he already has been.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "I know she felt threatened, I am not disputing it was a terrible thing to do. I am disputing that it has anything to do with trolling...."
Well, yeah, it crossed the line into cyberstalking. Weev shouldn't be prosecuted for the trolling component of what he did, just the cyberstalking component -- "going RW on" Sierra, targetting her home address and SSN for death threats and other malicious attacks by a crowd of angry readers... any of whom (and who knows how many?) might have turned out to be as unbalanced as Valerie Solanas or Diana Napolis (Spielberg's and Love Hewitt's stalker) or J.E. Parker (Melissa's stalker) or R.J. Bardo (Rebecca Schaeffer's stalker & killer).
There were too many precedents for Weev not to know the real danger of that. And all your claims that it could *never ever* happen fall flat in the face of how often it really has.
Ash Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreIt's weird that calling a self-identified nazi a nazi is considered mounting a propaganda war. It's odd that saying sociopathic harassment and abuse are bad is considered delusional.
Take a step back and ask yourself, if you are trying to win a propaganda war at any cost, would you get a swastika tattoo?
Ron Maimon Ash • 6 years ago • edited see moreIn prison, a swastika tattoo is actually politically helpful, as it allows you to join the racial white gang. This is one of the terrible things about American prisons.
The tattoo is a swastika with pictures of various images from European folklore. I find it oddly interesting, because it focuses on European heritage rather than racial violence, and his racist rants just didn't manage to offend me, as the attacks were always against those he percieved as powerful, not against the powerless. Nazis generally pick on homeless people for racist attacks, not on the lawyers for the prosecution. His method is strange. But it's not my job to judge his politics, and neither is it yours.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more"You won't find many hackers who are racist out of conviction, as they are exposed to way too much diversity in hackerdom."
Gosh, I remember encountering Holocaust-denial textfiles that had been making the rounds on BBS networks back in the early 80s (when Usenet was still new and not for the general public) -- and they had come from a subnetwork of Nazi and white-supremacist BBSs connecting their various enclaves.
That subnetwork, of course, could use round-robin dialup to circulate documents mostly within itself -- sending propaganda outside only when it chose, and certainly not circulating rebuttals.
But even now in the WWW, when all their website links are to each other, it's hard to say they're "exposed to way too much diversity in hackerdom" -- if they don't *link* to the diversity, they don't *see* it, any more than Amish watch TV.
Ash Raven • 6 years ago see moreYeah, the idea that racist goons would be exposed to contradictory information in a meaningful way seems to ignore the filter bubble that most people's online habits stay within. Further, they'd need to want to challenge their ideas, which seems an awfully open minded thing to do for an idiot with a swastika tattoo which looks like it was inspired by jerking it to American History X.
Miranda Ghrist Raven • 6 years ago see moreYeah, and they're as unpopular as they've always been. Only now they complain about getting crap-flooded with stuff. It's no different than religious extremists, everything behind the great firewall of China, and kiddie pr0n networks. Humans suck. What's your solution to this obvious problem?
Ash Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreIn public life, posing proudly for a photograph of your swastika tattoo suggests you are quite taken with it. You know, beyond playing the terrible game of survival.
And nobody said it was anyone's job, nor does it need to be. Clearly you agree. Let's not pretend otherwise.
Cutjunkie Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreOh come on. There has never been a history of anonymous speech in this country. Only organizations and individuals that are trying to do damage want anonymity -- classic example being the Clan. If you want to be brave put your name and address on every comment on the web, then we'll see how many trolls there are.
Ron Maimon Cutjunkie • 6 years ago • edited see moreThere is at least one such tradition, it's called "academic peer review". There is another such tradition which is anonymous pamphleteering, for example, Publius writing "The Federalist Papers". So if by "never" you mean "always" then you are right.
Cutjunkie Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreSure, one may submit an article for peer review anonymously or have it reviewed that way, but it will not be published that way. And by extension every time you post a comment you are "publishing". Pamphleteering is not publishing, but that again is also for cowards or those afraid of either the reaction or the authorities. If you are as brave as you claim to be, then why not just require all to reveal their true identities? And why the constant insults to those who disagree with you. If you can't make an argument without ad hominem attacks then why would anyone take you seriously?
Ron Maimon Cutjunkie • 6 years ago • edited see moreThere are anonymous peer reviewed articles too, for example, Bourbaki, or serious criticism in certain cases where anonymity will help.
I am NOT brave, I am a coward, but coward or not, one must speak out.
Nobody takes anyone seriously with ad-hominem attacks, but they always come anyway, in support of whatever happens to be the powerful position. The insults are just designed to be over-the-top, to even out the insult environment and make all the cumulative effect of all the previous insults go away. This happens very fast, the insults become irrelevant once there are enough of them. At this point, people focus on the content, and only look at objective evidence. Without the stage being evenly muddy with roughly equal amounts of mutual insult, the arena for objective review is simply unavailable.
It is unforunately required to have an even balance of insults on the page before people look at the facts objectively. When there is only one side posting insults, people believe that the insulting side must be strong, and don't bother looking at the objective evidence.
So the first rule of propaganda is to insult the opposition, until all sides are covered with mud. When you are finished with the insults, then you present the objective evidence. The side with the objective evidence has nothing to worry about in a muddy environment.
Miranda Ghrist Raven • 6 years ago see moreNobody should be stalked and harassed, including men, bronies, or cats. I think the real point of this article is that sometimes people refuse to understand community disapproval. And I don't mean a small privileged community, I mean the rest of us.
When a small privilaged lynch-mob tried to condemn a rape victim in Stubenville Ohio, the greater community criticized them. They'll whine until they're blue in the face that it's unfair they were called out for unethical behavior, but think about the bigger picture.Raven Miranda Ghrist • 6 years ago see more"Nobody should be stalked and harassed, including men, bronies, or cats."
Well... cats should be stalked and harassed. I'm harassing a cat right now. But he has all his claws, and can defend himself if he feels the need.
Miranda Ghrist Raven • 6 years ago see moreAre you sure it isn't the cat who's harassing you? You might be developing Stockholm Syndrome, which is very common when one is hassled by cats.
Fairportfan Raven • 6 years ago see moreMay i remind you of one of Lazarus Long's maxims: "Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty. But the pig enjoys it."
Ron Maimon Fairportfan • 6 years ago see moreThis is exactly right. I am a pig, and you need pigs, otherwise nobody wrestles with anybody, and wrong nonsense is never challenged and defeated.
Ash Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreYou are standing up for a free internet, sure. Why does that mean also excusing horrible actions?
You could say that weev is a terrible person who should be punished for harassment *instead* of the crimes he *has* been punished for, but you seem to want to pardon him for all of it, because freedom. You seem to think we have to support him entirely, and can't talk about his very real actions to suppress people's freedom online.
Why?
Ron Maimon Ash • 6 years ago • edited see moreI want to pardon him, because he isn't guilty of anything. It's just a mentally defective woman with her mentally defective crowd of high class twits.
Miranda Ghrist Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI object to calling any of this crowd high-class.
Chris Allen Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRisk your life all you want---that's your option. You forcing others to risk *their* lives is a whole other kettle of fish.
Raven Chris Allen • 6 years ago see moreAs Tuvok said in Star Trek: Of Gods and Men...
"My life -- my choice."Ron Maimon Chris Allen • 6 years ago • edited see moreNobody is risking their life here. You have to get your head out of your ass to see this.
What you are risking is an open internet discussion, where all are free to participate without restrictions.
Freddy Kruger Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon i like you think they are delusional. i even had people online say they marry others online and have virtual children. these people arguing in here would find that cute, but these types really need to see a psychiatrist for their states of delusion.
Fairportfan Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreHa.
Randall Munroe said (in the mouseover second punchline to this cartoon)
I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express.
That's you and everyone like you.
Ash Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWhen you say free internet for all, does it not concern you that some abuse others into leaving the internet?
You advocate a free internet, but really all you are advocating is a different set of people with the power to control who has free access, many of whom are horrible people.
'The discussions' is a peculiar way to frame it. I wonder if you realise how that comes across.
Ron Maimon Ash • 6 years ago • edited see moreThis is false. Openness means openness, and everyone is free to join. If they feel bullied, that's not something that one should be concerned about unduly, just point out that this is a natural feeling for everyone.
The internet does produce a much more abrasive discussion than is normal in day-to-day life, but this is also a much more effective discussion in terms of information content, and it is much more accurate when it is left alone. If it is made polite, then horrible and offensive lies are produced, and lynch mobs (such as this one) can operate with impunity. The trolls are the immune system of the internet, and if you have the immune system ganging up on you, then you need to fight back or give up, according to whether they are right or you are right.
The people who harrass online simply do not have any real-world power. This is a fact. They have no power online either, in the case where they are factually wrong.
When they get attention, it is because their writing makes effective propaganda. Anyone can do it, it just takes a reasonably strong self-image, some actual effort to learn how to do propaganda, and a study of insults and a quickly developed thick skin for them. The thick skin is important, as it allows you to venture into new intellectual territory without fear, and without the worry that you'll get lost and never return to sanity.
A black man can go to a KKK site, and they lose their intimidation factor. A Jewish fellow can find out what neo nazis are into, and learn a bit about Odin and Thor. The Odin and Thor business, is important folklore, not deemed worth preserving, because both in racist thinking and in anti-racist thinking "whiteness" is not an ethnicity. When you get over past oppression, European culture is a real ethnicity, like any other, and Odin and Thor are important.
There is a level playing field, and it is simply false that the insults are more intimidating to the powerless. They are most intimidating to the powerful, as the constant cogent heckling criticism of the mainstream press by the alternative press online, a heckling which is now winning, is the subtext in any such discussion.
Ash Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more"The Odin and Thor business, is important folklore, not deemed worth preserving, because both in racist thinking and in anti-racist thinking "whiteness" is not an ethnicity. "
I call bullshit.
If Odin and Thor are not deemed worth preserving, then how come we have reconstructed faiths that follow those gods?
Why would you pretend that these figures are not preserved in myth and legend? I have a copy of the Edda on my bookshelf, and I am not alone in knowing about the aesir and vanir.
Your pretence that the gods that some volkist racists favour are being stifled when they are not, suggests you feel connected with those groups.
If not, I wonder why you chose those two, and not, for example, Loki?
If anything, his legend is more suppressed, as he was remade by christians as an analog for Satan.
Ron Maimon Ash • 6 years ago • edited see moreI am choosing these two, because I don't know anything about this stuff, I am not Western European and honestly I find pre-Christian Western European culture hokey, I am not a big fan of Alistair Crowley. But hokey or not so hokey, it's a distinct ethnic culture, and it gives insight into literature and culture, and its worth preserving. These two, Odin and Thor, are ones weev talked about. Loki sounds better, as you say.
I think they are suppressed in the same sense that Irish culture was suppressed in the 18th century, before the famine. Through political pressure to abandon this and join the majority Christian culture. This is ultimately what Nietzsche and Hitler were basing their movement on. Of course Christianity is vastly more important, but the pagan heritage didn't really have a voice, as it was always commingled with Hitler style race-hatred, at least in the early half of the twentieth century. It seems to be separating from this today.
I do feel connected with these groups because they are persecuted and marginalized (justly, because American and European racism is a more serious problem than neglect of pagan culture), it's certainly not because I agree with them. I read their material while doing quick online research to make sure the holocause actually did happen as stated. At some point I became skeptical of the story, because I grew up in Israel surrounded by victims, so I was never exposed to the opinion of the perpetrators, for obvious reasons. After a few hours of searching, I found good firsthand documents from Pressac and good firsthand perpetrator testimony, from next generation Germans, which made it clear that the mainstream narrative is actually correct. The Odin and Thor cults were weird things that explained to me where these groups get their legs from. They really need to separate this stuff from racial hatred and white supremacy, so that it can just exist without being evil, oppressive, racist, or satanic.
I like powerless people with an opinion, because I know they didn't get this opinion by following the mainstream, although this particular opinion, of course, I could live without. So I look to see "what could possibly be worth salvaging in their brain damage?" And the stuff I find interesting is their focus on Western European ethnicity. Loki is good too, I suppose.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "I am not Western European and honestly I find pre-Christian Western European culture hokey, I am not a big fan of Alistair Crowley."
Aleister Crowley is hardly representative of (actual) pre-Christian Western European culture -- nor of (actual) ancient Egyptian culture, a very common theme in his works.
Ash Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more"And the stuff I find interesting is their focus on Western European ethnicity. "
The thing worth salvaging from the racist goon's ideology was an obsession with white European ethnicity? That seems an odd choice.
"They really need to separate this stuff from racial hatred and white supremacy, so that it can just exist without being evil, oppressive, racist, or satanic."
It does exist separately form all those things. Racist goons who need something to prop up their goonery link them.
Ron Maimon Ash • 6 years ago see moreWhat else is there to salvage? Race-baiting? Anti-semitism? Church-burning? Lynching? Jim Crow? Goose-stepping? Science-denial? Genetic supremacy? Class superiority? Roman ethics? Slavery? Genocide? Amphetamines? Death metal? There's nothing here which isn't completely repulsive except Thor, Grimm, fondue and yodeling. When I was young, I couldn't understand how ANYONE could possibly get into this Nazi stuff, even with all its implied priviledge, for any reason other than being born evil. But of course nobody is evil in the genes, 1968 Germany was not caused by gamma rays from space. But 1930s Germany wasn't all about fondue and yodeling either.
I suspect (without evidence) it's this way: People always look for an identity. They reject the Christian identity, for one reason or another, probably because they like to have sex. So they find the pre-Christian Western European thing, where you could have sex whenever you felt like it.
So now you have a bunch of repressed people who hate the Jews because they think all that repression is the Jews' fault. That is, if those Jews didn't exist, there wouldn't be any Christianity, everyone would be pagan, and they would be having sex-orgies.
They don't blame the actual European Christians that spread the Christian religion, because if it was really non-Jews spreaing this out of necessity, you know, like the historical record describes, then that means that monotheism would be an inevitable process, the inevitable outcome of human social evolution. Since it can't be, because it makes people so miserably repressed, it has to be some imposition by other people. So they think it's the Jews' fault, because, you know, look at the Bible. If that was your only source for the history of religion, what would you think?
It's easy, because the scriptures make Christianity look more Jewish than it really is, and make the God concept look like it's owned by Jews in some special way which of course it's not. So the Jew hatred is really special, there's nothing the Jews can do to fix it, because it's really God hatred, accidentally redirected due to the content of the only holy book they have.
So the Nazis really think there's a defective monotheistic gene hidden inside the Jewish chromosomes that tells Jews to lie to people about the monotheistic business, and then Jews use their "unique genius of persuasion" (in Neitzsche's term) to make the whole world monotheistic. They think this monotheistic gene just needs to be eradicated, and for things to go back to pagan times, with orgies and slaves and gladiator games, and all that wonderful stuff.
They hate on other races for a much more banal reason, simply because these pagan traditions don't consider humanity as one unit, bound under one universal ethical notion, but rather each little clan has its own gods, and those gods take care only of their own members. They enslave and use other clans for whatever purpose, as they are not under the protection of their specific tribal deity. This means that they look for any opportunity to demean and exploit others, and then you get all the rest of the horror. They like you less and less the less you look like a European, because, you know, that means your god looks less and less like thier god. It's really that shallow.
They also imagine this paganism is secretly what Jews believe in private, and that the Jewish religion is publically monotheistic, but secretly pagan, and Jews are doing terrible things to others in secret rituals. This is what historical anti-semitism says about Jews, for completely different reasons. So now they hate the Jews even more, and everyone else can go to hell too, and that's Naziism.
I don't see any other coherent motivation for the peculiar convergence of unique crazy ideas that come together in Nazi ideology, other than restoring the pre-Christian Europe, and ridding it of the "Jewish influence" of Christianity. It was a great puzzle to me where these ideas come from, these things weren't invented by Hitler--- he wasn't very imaginative. I think it's a Nietzchian attempt to get Christianity out of Europe, and then kill the Jews so that they don't whip up another Jesus or something (as if you specifically needed Jews to do that). But Nietzsche wasn't very imaginative either
Since Marxism is a sort of Christianity 2.0, with modern capitalism replacing the Roman system, and since 2.0 was trying to replace 1.0, 1.0 was really weak in the 1930, and so the Nazis saw a chace to flush the whole thing down the toilet and go back to version 0.0. But of course, anyone who was going by 1.0 or 2.0 (or who had any decency) joined together and eradicated this crap.
Then you can blame two things: the suppression of sex, and the suppression of Odin and Thor. The first is more or less quickly solved in a few decades postwar, anyone can do pretty much whatever without too much interference. But the second is still there, motivating a little bit of residual neo-nazism. I think that once Odin and Thor are respected a little bit, you won't have any more of this cancer.
Also, weev focuses only on this aspect, the Odin and Thor, which, being the most innocuous aspect of this whole set of beliefs, makes me think he isn't sincere in this business.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreHitler was a tremendous Wagner fan (and a friend of the family), and the Asgard mythos, the Old Germanic mythos in general, was to Germans of that time much like Westerns were to Americans of the middle and latter 20th century -- unifying imagery that nearly everyone (not just Nazis) identified with in their hearts. The Nazi party used it to increase their popularity, just like campaign cheerleaders in the US wearing sequined cowboy hats, vests, shirts, shorts, and boots.
That is, this did not reflect a peculiarly strong interest among Nazis in ancient history or mythology -- it reflected a nationwide interest in such operatic themes, which the Nazis took advantage of in (for instance) their rune-like symbolism and those extravagant rallies -- filmed to be shown again and again around the country.
As for hatred of Jews... well, nothing new there. The first German Crusaders, before they left for the Holy Land, killed all the "enemies of Christ" (Jews) they could find right there in Germany. Later, the great church reformer Martin Luther famously fulminated against Jews (destroy their temples, their vestments, their scriptures,... send them to work in the fields,... and finally, away with them!) -- and Hitler scheduled Kristallnacht, the attack on Jewish shops that left store windows shattered all over the streets, to take place on Martin Luther's birthday.
Admittedly, Jews were an obvious target. They stood out in appearance -- they'd never assimilated, marrying only within their own people, so their looks remained foreign. In language, they kept Hebrew and adopted a quasi-German dialect* called "Jewish German" -- Jüdisch Deutsch -- or "Yiddish", whose accent was distinct from gentile German... and that accent was used to identify many Jews trying to escape the Holocaust. Due to residence restrictions going back to the Middle Ages, they lived in separate districts ("ghettos") from Gentiles, so there was little "neighborly" interaction. A perfect arrangement for Jews to be regarded as alien, strange, mysterious, etc.
(* Once settled, now a matter of some controversy: see here and here.)
On top of all this was a problem not related to Jewishness, but found in ghettos of all sorts and any ethnicity in any country in any decade: crime, such as prostitution. This was one of the issues the Nazis waved about to condemn all Jews together, even those who never engaged in such crimes. The theory was "collective guilt": Jews would be executed as a group because they were all held criminally responsible for the actions of a few. (Just as a squad is made to run around boot camp because one member of it fouled up.)
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreI think you have an interesting point of view, I am curious about Yiddish, but I am not persuaded of any your direct points regarding Hitler and Naziism.
You are making it out to be a natural thing, like it was just one crazy guy taking a little bit of German folklore and exploiting a history of anti-semitism like there was in France or Spain. That's not what it was as I see it, this was not an opportunistic thing, it was the main goal of the program. Reaing Nietzsche is essential here.
I think you fail to appreciate the uniqueness of the new kind of post-industrial secular anti-Christian Nietzschian anti-semitism. It's something complete different from Christian anti-Semitism. Nietzsche SHUNS all previous anti-semitism, he thinks it is boorish and primitive and completely wrong, because it is an outgrowth of Christian thinking, which he despises.
He substitutes for this something else, which is hatred of monotheistic ethics. Without monotheistic ethics, people, Nietzsche realized, would go right back to the order of Rome, with slavery, naked power, sexual exploitation, sadism, and general barbarism and a pure Darwinian political society, and he liked this idea, so he advocated it. He didn't mind Jews who liked this idea too, by the way, he was happy with atheistic German Jews who advocated the same thing he was advocating. He just didn't like what he considered to be the Jewish monotheistic ethics, even though these ethics are really Christian inventions if you look at them closely..
The old pre-Nietzsche Christian anti-Semitism is the old tale of the blood-libel, it goes like this: Jews rejected and crucified Christ, then they rejected the redemption, and this rejection leaves them permanently vengeful and hateful, applying barbaric pre-Christian ideas of eye-for-eye and blood for blood, instead of the more modern (in the sense of the 2nd century AD) ideas of charity and forgiveness, and spiritual growth through meditation and so on. Think of Barrabas or Shylock from Marlowe's plays. It is false, because the Jews had the same revolution in the religion as Christians did in 135 AD with the modern diaspora and the Jewish martyrs. In the end, the Jews converged on something which is essentially indistinguishable, metaphysics aside, from the Christians.
The antagonism of Christianity and Judaism in the centuries preceding Nietzsche was simple religious conflict, like Jews vs. Samaritans in ancient times. The Christians put pressure on Jews to convert, they evicted them from place to place, but there was no concept of eradication or genocide, or any type of racial discrimination here, simply because this concept wouldn't occur to a pre-Nietzsche anti-semite.
The anti-semitism of Luther is of the old sort, the anti-semitism in Europe in general was of this old sort before the late 19th century. I believe Hitler was piggy-backing off of this anti-semitism to extend his appeal, but his anti-semitism is nothing like that. Hitler's anti-semitism is Nietzche's.
It is a direct attack on monotheism, it is really attacking Christianity not Judaism, by persecuting the Catholics, and deforming the Protestant churches to his will. The Bible was replaced with the Grimm tales in the schools in the period in question, on purpose to remove Jewish influence. Jewish works were burned, and Jewish contributions to thinking were denied, including religious thinking. Even Christmas was denuded of representations of Christ (this was controversial, but it happene in the later years of the era).
Wherever possible, ethical questions that usually involve looking to God for guidance were removed using the Fuehrerprinzip, that you look only to Hitler to determine right or wrong. The Fuhrerprinzip was really an abdication of monotheistic ethics, and it was used to produce behaviors which could not be done since the modern religious era began in the 5th century.
Borrowing from an equally secular and even more Rome-worshipping Mussolini, the Nazis made a restoration of Roman pomp and ceremony, and they restored one by one nearly all the things that the midieval era had gradually abolished. So you saw slavery state torture, and absolute power unchecked by any church.
To this, they added totatlitarian surveillance, and the class rule of a Protestant bourgeoisie with unlimited power, and a complete disenfranchisment of Catholics whose religion was considered second only to Judaism in perniciousness.
Wagner was a traditional anti-semite, not a Nietzschian anti-semite, and Nietzsche did not like him because of this. But traditional anti-semitism was not antagonistic to the new kind of anti-semitism, Hitler, to the extent that he paid lip-service to Christianity, was both, But reliance on Christianity just blocked the attempts to extend this to a removal of Christianity from Germany. But the removal of Christianity was going on still. The goal was to produce a purely German national identity, free of sentimental ethics (ethics) and Jewish ethics (monotheism).
The eventual goal was to wipe out Christianity as is clear from policy, from associations, and from Hitler's writings. Nazi anti-semitism was first and foremost of the Nietzschian variety, and not any kind of traditional Christian catholic or Lutheran variety. It wanted to wipe out religion by wiping out what they saw as its source, then by gradually removing its manifestations.
This type of anti-semitism produces genoicide, because the idea is that the Jews carry monotheism in their genes, and you can't have them poisoning future generations. It also has no compunctions about genocide, because it has no sentimental ethics, your goal is to become hard as a rock, and to be able to murder without sentiment.
Mass conversion of Jews saved lives in previous Christian-Jewish conflicts, but it was useless here. The Nazis were simply murdering to erase people who they felt enslaved them with the monstrous lie of God, and they identified these people as the Jews.
Hitler was not at all a religious fellow. If he had any faith, it was gone when he left the trenches.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Hitler was not at all a religious fellow. If he had any faith, it was gone when he left the trenches."
Privately, and not at all for public consumption, he repeatedly asserted his theistic, Christian, Catholic beliefs, and that it was God's/Christ's will he fight Jews; hence the Nazi belt-buckle motto, "Gott Mit Uns" (God With Us). Protestant and Catholic chaplains served with the German army throughout WWII, with the approval and cooperation of their higher clergy... and at that page you can see Hitler in church, meeting with higher clergy, and even sculpted in German churches.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreHitler possibly believed in a sort of God, the same sort of historical-destiny God Nietzsche mentions sometimes, but this is certainly not the monotheistic God derived from the Christian tradition, which as far as I heard, Hitler considered incompatible with modern scientific understanding (it's somewhere on Wikipedia, that's the extent of my knowledge).
He does not ever persuasively assert Christian beliefs as far as I can see, although as a politician he is required to do this, as you say. He certainly he doesn't hold Catholic beliefs as an adult, as one of the principal tenets is the complete equality and unity of all races, at least anyone among them who accepts Catholicism. Hitler's policy were ruthless toward the Catholic Slavs and toward the Orthodox Slavs (let alone the Marxist Slavs). His biggest financial support base was international Protestant capital, not Catholics, although his political base at home was in large part Catholic.
He met with clergy, he struck deals with churches, but his movement's eventual long-term goal was either the eradication of Christianity, or at least, it's complete de-Judaization, and a Nietzschian-style restoration of pre-monotheistic ethics. I don't consider Naziism a pure cult of personality either, so Hitler the person is not so important, as his ideas only get power through reinforcement from others around him. Among his political supporters and enablers, the great majority were rabidly anti-Marxist top industrialists and financiers, who were anti-Christian, or at least anti-Catholic, in large numbers. These people included a large number of Nietzsche followers, as they do to this day. So even if Hitler himself was a Christian, then he would have been a misled puppet figurehead for the Nietzschians behind him, a proposition which is extremely dubious.
I hold to those beliefs described in the section of your link entitled "Hitler myths". Hitler was not a sincere Christian, his regime was the closest the world came to reversing the Christian revolution of the 5th century AD, and Marxism too, I suppose. His Reich church would replace monotheistic ethics with a subserviance to a political order of the party, with all ethics contingent on the poitical decisions at the top. This is much as Communism in Russia had replaced the Orthodox church with subservience to the communist party.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "Hitler possibly believed in a sort of God, the same sort of historical-destiny God Nietzsche mentions sometimes, but this is certainly not the monotheistic God derived from the Christian tradition, which as far as I heard, Hitler considered incompatible with modern scientific understanding...."
He felt he was personally chosen by God to carry out His work, a belief confirmed when he survived an assassination attempt -- through divine intervention, he was certain. This clearly is a personal God, not "historical-destiny" and still less "modern scientific understanding".
"He does not ever persuasively assert Christian beliefs as far as I can see.... He certainly he doesn't hold Catholic beliefs as an adult,..."
Martin Bormann and Francois Genoud manufactured anti-Catholic and anti-Christian quotes for Hitler, but his own words contradict them; keep reading that nobeliefs site, particularly http://nobeliefs.com/HitlerSources.htm, and note Hitler's own words in private to his confidant -- "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so."
"...as one of the principal tenets [of Catholicism] is the complete equality and unity of all races,...."
Until 1962, the Good Friday Mass in the Catholic Missal included the phrase "perfidious Jews", and traditionally Jews were called "deicides" or "Christ-killers", epithets only discouraged after that point by Vatican II.
During WWII, Pope Pius XXII had been as anti-Semitic as the mass of Germans -- see this book review for some discussion -- and another says:
"... Pius, in his pre-papal role as Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, was responsible for the concordat the Vatican struck with Hitler in 1933, shortly after the dictator came to power. Throughout the Holocaust, Goldhagen writes, the only time that church officials spoke out was to protest the persecution of Jews who had converted to Catholicism. Otherwise, they cheerfully released to the Nazis genealogical information regarding who had been a Jew in the past, which the Gestapo used with murderous efficiency."
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreI read more about this, I strongly dispute the content of that page. It isn't compatible with readings of Hitler, and it is simply trying to protect Nietzschian philosophy from the stain of association with Hitler, and shoving Hitler on the cross instead. He is not an actual Christian, at least not in any historically accurate meaning of the term, and he is not a pure Nietzschian either. He is Hitler, he's his own thing.
The "historical destiny" God can be a personal God too, it's not necessarily impersonal, and I didn't mean to imply that it was. Hitler did believe he was on the side of historical destiny God. It just wasn't the normal Catholic God of his youth, at least not as interpreted normally. He was sure that Jesus was an Aryan, he drew a blonde Jesus as an artist. He believed that God was on the side of racial supremacy, and culling of those he percieved as weak, by means of state power. He supported homicidal eugenics, something the church has always consistently opposed with no exception (and opposed in Nazi Germany too, when they were gassing the mentally handicapped, which is why the holocaust was kept more or less a secret), and his positions reflect a populist German brand of Nietzschianism, because although he wasn't a Nietzsche reader, the ideas of Nietzsche had thoroughly seeped in throughout Germany. The main idea of Nietzsche is that monotheism strangles the strong with the ethics of slaves, and that Jews imposed Christianity on others, so as to weaken the others. Nietzsche himself hated traditional Christian anti-Semitism, because he hated Christianity. Hitler just wasn't clever enough to hate Christianity, or else he was just clever enough to hide his hatred of Christianity. He just publically hated the Jews, something which both Nietzchians and Christian anti-Semites could both agree on.
You can read his words in Mein Kampf (I read it a long time ago, by skimming, it's online). He is opposed to the doctrines of weakness--- he opposes the notion that "the meek shall inherit the Earth", he considers the notion of submission and passive resistance as abhorrent, he believes in ruthless power, and says so explicitly.
Bormann was the true Nietzschian, it is true, not so much Hitler, who was not. But the rank-and-file SS was Nietzschian, not weird perverted Christian. The head honcho was more superficially Christian than the rest.
The complicity of the Catholic church with Hitler is well known, and this stains Pope Pius forever. But in contrast, individual Catholics and pious Protestants formed the greatest core of resistance to Hitler throughout the regime.
The fact is that Hitler was trying to reform Christianity as a religion of strength, with an Aryan jesus, a doctrine of merciless cruelty, and an ethics of absolute subservience to state authority. These are simply not compatible with Christianity in any form, although because the Church didn't like Jews for religious reasons, it did not object to the murder of Jews unless they had become Catholic.
The Jews that converted to Catholicism were butchered just the same as all the rest. Conversion didn't help, because Nietzsche style anti-semitism is not against the Jews because they are Jewish, it is against the Jews because it imagines that they are the ones who produced monotheistic Christianity, and it is against monotheism. Hitler, like all good politicians, was all things to all people, and both Nietzschians and Christian anti-Semites could find something to support.
The way to resolve such disputes is to read the actual sources, and see who had the power in the regime. Was it the Christian Catholic anti-Semites? Or was it the secular Nietzschians?
Unlike Hitler, Mussolini is openly Nietzschian.
Neitzche wasn't the official philosopher of the Nazis for no reason, even though he wasn't Hitler's favorite. As I said, Naziism wasn't a pure cult of personality, Hitler was just the top man.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "I read more about this, I strongly dispute the content of that page. It isn't compatible with readings of Hitler...."
You mean Table Talk ? But that was filtered, first through the anti-Catholic Bormann, and then through the French translator Genoud. The English edition is translated from the French, not from the original German (in which Genoud's changes are absent). The website's other pages quote extensively from Hitler's own writings, unfiltered through anyone, which are emphatically Christian -- following an Aryan Christ, yes. He was, as his modern followers are, what we now call an "Identity Christian". Please keep reading.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreI mean "Mein Kampf". I never read "Table Talk", and it is not necessary to establish the Nazi's Nietzschianism.
It becomes a semantic dispute if you define whatever he was as Christian. If you insist on calling it "Christian", and I don't like this terminology, but terminology is not important, it is without doubt a new type of distinctly anti-Catholic neo-Protestant crazy Christianity which claims that Jesus looks out for one group, rather than everyone. Looking out for everyone, rather than one group, is what makes monotheism monotheism.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "He is not an actual Christian, at least not in any historically accurate meaning of the term...."
Oh, who is?! It's changed since that chap from Nazareth was doing the lecture circuit! At least St. Paul, Constantine, and the First Council of Nicaea managed that much!
"Christian" means "follower of Christ" -- one's own idea of Christ, anyway, with or without that Council-inflaming iota -- be he Prince of Peace, or Christ Pantocrator with sword, come to finally dispense justice. Hitler followed his own idea of Christ, like any other Christian... and specifically like the Identity Christians.
"He was sure that Jesus was an Aryan, he drew a blonde Jesus as an artist."
And if you read that article, you'll notice he wasn't even the first to have that idea.
(Or look to 18th-19th-20th century British Israelism, which entangled such notables as Christian Science's Mary Baker Eddy, and Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God.)
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreI am not talking about Jesus or even Paul, I am talking about the basic point of Christian church teachings as understood essentially from the beginning until now. These teachings were designed to create martyr actions which would topple Roman naked absolute power, and place the church as an ethical guide above the power of the state. It's sort of like the communist party placing itself above the state in Russia, this is mideval theocracy, except not totalitarian, in that individual political leaders only looked to the church when they did something objectionable, and the Church ensured they lost support.
The doctrines are of complete equality of all humans who accept Christ, of all Church members, of a non-specific non-tribal deity you are supposed to export to everyone in the world, of denying worldly power, and of spiritual resistance to barbaric cruelty by examples of martyrdom. These are the fundamental tenets.
To say Hitler said "Christ" is meaningless if the fundamental tenets aren't there. The fudnamental tenets in Hitler are replaced by Nietzschian ones, of strength, and Christ becomes the "god of whites", instead of a monotheistic "God for all humanity". That's a subversion of all previous Christian teachings, there can be no debate over this. There was not a ton of debate about this in Hitler-times either, the sincerely religious people didn't feel he was one of them, and the White Rose consisted of some Christians in Germany, however few of them were left.
It is difficult to explain unless you understand monotheism, so I would suggest you my answer here first (if you have time : http://christianity.stackex... ). I'm sorry to link, but if you are an atheist, then you usually just don't understand what monotheism means. Nietzsche was an atheist who actually understood what monotheism means, and rejected it, and the Nazis followed him, not Jesus.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "I am talking about the basic point of Christian church teachings as understood essentially from the beginning until now. ... These are the fundamental tenets."
The problem with that solid certainty, Ron, is that it's founded on shifting sand. Meek mild soon-to-be-martyred nonviolent Jesus also took a whip-of-cords to the money-changers in the temple, and told his followers to "sell your cloak and buy a sword" (Luke 22:36) ; this is the Prince of Peace who said "I bring not peace but a sword." (Matthew 10:34) The warriors and crusaders who looked in the Bible for passages to justify violence... found them.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see more"I bring not peace, but the sword" is not talking about cutting people, it is talking about talking, and the context is unambiguous about this. The sword is pitting mother against daughter, father against son, and brother against brother, at the DINNER TABLE, in the struggle to convert them to the new faith. This is likened to a sword in the passage, it is discussing the schism that Christianity will bring in society. This is also discussed here: http://christianity.stackex... .
There is no dispute among Christians regarding the meaning of this verse (nor can the meaning possibly be disputed by any person who is able to read and reads the chapter). There is not a SINGLE Christian denominational interpretation of this verse as militaristic, it is only thought of this way in ignorant people who are skimming the New Testament, and are snarkily looking for a contradiction or alternative reading which in this case does not exist. Jesus never advocates military struggle or violence in any form, and none of the Christian texts are about violent struggle (although they are about a struggle).
The actions of Jesus in overturning the money changer tables are symbolic of nonviolent protest. There is no real implied violence towards any human being, still it is not a passive action. The point is that Jesus is not an authority of any kind, and has no power to get the money changers out, nor is he a man who has any ability to harm them, except symbolically.
The basic tenet of Christianity is the destruction of authority by contrarian action which opposes the authority. This is a form of trolling.
If you would like to see more exampes of trolling by Jesus:
"Are you king of the Jews?" "You said it, not me."
"Shall we stone this woman?" "The one without sin can throw the first stone."
"Why do your disciples eat treph from the field?" "Are you complaining that God made it so?"etc, etc, really pissy annoying answers, classic trolling. The whole of the gospels are a blueprint for effective trolling, and this is why I was inspired to read the whole thing, and why it was moving. It is clearly a description for how to challenge power effectively, with martyrdom accepted as the price.
That's the essence of what Jesus is all about, nonviolent trolling, accepting that the consequence is potential violent reprisal, and letting yourself take that risk to produce a better world. This is why trolling must be preserved. It's how you produce progress.
Hitler is about thuggery, and the resuscitation of the Roman empire, and natural law of strong oppressing weak. This is the opposite of the CORE TENET that makes Christianity Christianity, (ignoring metaphysics, since religious metaphysics is always purposefully stupid and nonsensical). The Roman natural law order is opposed permanently and consistently, at all times, by all denominations, without exception, except perhaps Mormonism which I am not familiar with. These things are simply not fungible, if it doesn't oppose the Roman style order of natural law and hierarchies of humanity, it just shouldn't be called Christianity.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "'I bring not peace, but the sword' is not talking about cutting people...."
Which would be persuasive if his disciples didn't have to each one sell his cloak to buy a sword (unless they already owned one), which was not talking about talking at the dinner table.
The revision of Jesus (and thereby his followers) as nonviolent comes after he's been arrested and executed -- oh, all that sword-and-struggle stuff was only SYMBOLIC, we're no threat to Rome! -- but selling-one's-cloak is one detail that gives away the serious physicality of it. And the money-changers were physically beaten. And by AD 66, the gaff was well and truly blown: a physical rebellion, with swords, was underway -- the sort the Romans had tried to prevent by executing anyone who claimed to be a "King of the Jews".
"The actions of Jesus in overturning the money changer tables are symbolic of nonviolent protest."
Oh, I love it! Ron, you're so funny! Physical violence, including beating people with a whip, is only "symbolic of nonviolent protest." I suppose stabbing them with swords would be, too. That sounds hallucinatory, like the argument of someone on an acid trip. Yeah, man, Charles Manson's family should have tried that defense in court, "these killings were only symbolic of nonviolent protest," and maybe they'd have been acquitted, right?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreI am sorry, you simply have not read the gospels at all. There is no way in heck that any of that stuff can be read as a preparation for a military revolt. The whole point of the crucifiction is that Jesus was NOT engaged in any military anything, he was completely innocent, he didn't do anything except troll the empire.
The Jewish revolt of 66 AD was JEWISH not Christian, the Christians weren't in Palestine at the time as far as I can tell from any reliable historical record, they were all in Rome. This revolt had nothing to do with Jesus, it had to do with the Jewish interpretation of messiah at the time, which was the leader who would overthrow Rome by force of arms.
Jesus, as far as I can see, is more a vague amalgalm of various people than a person. He's a prototype for martyrdom and resistance. There's much of James the Just in Jesus, a little of John the Baptist, those are definitely historical people, and maybe there was another person named Jesus too, although that is not strictly necessary for the religion to work. You are trying to read in a historical Jesus into the documents, something that contravenes the purpose of the text, which is to replace the miltaristic doctrines of messiah with spiritual doctrine of messiah. The text is a REACTION to Jewish militaristic interpretation of messianic doctrine, it is saying that messiah is a spiritual term, not a military term, and the victory does not come on a literal field of battle. This is the WHOLE POINT of the texts, and it is not only accepted by Christians, it is also accepted by Jews past 135 AD, when Rabbi Akiva and all the others are martyred.
This new interpretation withstood history. Ben Gurion, who actually "liberated Palestine for the Jews" is not identified as a "messiah" in any Jewish religious text (although some secular Jews proposed that he should be so identified), simply because he is a secular political leader, not a spiritual figure. The interpretation of the term changed, and the Christians led the change. The change is there from the beginning, and any militaristic sentiment you read into the gospels is your own insistence on falsely reading made up history into (reasonably good) theology.
The Jesus followers were nothing like the Manson followers, as they were all Greek, and mostly outside of Palestine, and they did not support militaristic resistance to Roman rule.
I strongly disagree with your painting of the events in the gospels as preparations for military revolution. This is just what non-Christians or atheists do when reading the text without understanding. The texts were written in the 2nd century, and are not celebrating the end of a failed revolt, but the beginning of a successful one.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "... the purpose of the text, which is to replace the miltaristic doctrines of messiah with spiritual doctrine of messiah. ... it is saying that messiah is a spiritual term, not a military term...."
And "my kingdom is of heaven, not of earth" etc, such things very important to say when your original leader was executed under the label "King of the Jews", the Roman Empire's policy being to suppress any pretenders to kingship 'with extreme prejudice'.
This is the context, important to understand, for all the Gospels: they were written down and edited and distributed by the Church while the Empire was alive, strong, thriving, alert, and ready to destroy any group whose writings proved rebellious intent. Therefore, no matter what Jesus actually said aloud to his followers, the written Gospels would have had to portray him and thereby his followers as utterly peaceful and harmless.
And so Christians appeared, mostly*, until Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire. And then the lambs turned into lions. For instance, Mithraist priests were chained to their altars and their grottoes collapsed around them; the evidence remained to be uncovered when archaeologists dug up the grottoes. Of surface temples' priests and priestesses, less evidence remains (arson was common), but witnesses saw a mob of Christians murder Hypatia the Librarian of Alexandria, shredding and then burning her body. One victim out of many.
Fire and sword, Ron. The mask was off. Now Lamb-Christ was to be Wolf-Christ, Pantocrator of Earth, wielding his blade.
"... and the victory does not come on a literal field of battle."
Of course that message became especially popular after Rome had quashed Judea forever and scattered its inhabitants to the four winds.... Until Constantine had Rome adopt the faith, then the victories on literal fields of battle just kept coming, right?
* Actually, besides their refusal to worship the Emperor's genius, there was scuttlebutt that they got together to devour somebody's body and blood every so often... frightening enough to get whole communities of Christians evicted from towns!
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreThat's a very violent interpretation of Christianity, and it does not describe other post Constantine events very well. For example, the Colloseum was closed when a martyr stood up in protest, and was killed by the mob, leading the authorities to shut down the place. Christians brought the religion to Germany, to England, and to Ireland, then to Poland, and Russia, and so forth, and these people were powerless in the new lands, and were persecuted like the Church founders were. This is not the kind of action you expect from a vengeful Christian victory, it wasn't a military action or an action of the sword, rather the same kind of actions which are consistent with previous martyrs, following the letter of the gospels.
The deaths of the Mithraic priests are historical, but I don't know what happened there. When you say "Christians did it", it is not clear that it is the Church itself meting out a death sentence, or whether it is a lot of former slaves doing terrible things to their former masters, as often happens in any successful slave revolt. Same with Hypatia. These pagans were likely slave-owners, and Christianity was a successful slave-revolt, where the slaves become free. the scholarly stuff was destroyed by those who were destroying the slave system, same as the classical art and classical culture.
I see it from a different perspective, which is more Marxist (but Nietzsche also saw it this way, he just didn't like it). The revolt here is the elimination of the Roman slave-master system, with the creation of a sort of egalitarian brotherhood of slaves, which is then reinforced by religious terror from a political organization, sort of like modern Marxist states. The terror was towards those who supported the old order, and the terror was ruthless toward the masters in a similar way to how slavery was ruthless toward the slaves. It's like the terror in Russia, or in other communist states, which was directed at those who in other societies would be members of the bourgeoisie. Their plight is more visible, as they are visible members of society, while the plight of slaves was about as worthy to record as the plight of homeless vagabonds is today.
The collapse of the slave system just destroyed the old economic order of Rome, so that the enormous construction projects could not be done, the precision sculpture could not be made (which incidentally suggests to me that the precision sculpting was done as grunt-work by slaves from body-casts, not by an undocumented army of ancient Rodins from their imagination), the libraries could not be maintained outside of Churches, and the old doctrines of master superiority over slave were removed, and anyone who supported these doctrines was a target. The whole system collapsed, and the dark ages means that even high-class literacy was gone, leaving only Church literacy.
I don't see this as the Christians now doing the same thing when in power, because these power structures just absolutely needed to be removed, otherwise we would still be living in a Roman style essentially Nazi slave state.
The real terror here during the midieval era was the suppression of individual initiative, much like in modern Marxist states. Anyone who wanted to do an individualist project, like Marlowe writing great plays, is considered as an atavistic throwback to the Roman masters, and shunned by the community, and is only accepted back if they accept the authority of the community and the communal values that are shared since the Christian revolution.
The Protestant revolution allowed a certain amount of individuality in Christianity, modern science restored not even Roman science (which was atrocious) but previous Greek science and extended it tremendously--- the suppression of honest science was in my opinion the greatest problem with the church, and Capitalism allowed the division of labor found in master/slave societies to be reestablished within a more egalitarian system, but still not very egalitarian. But this partial classical restoration in the 1492-1992 bourgeoise era also lead people to consider Christianity as an imposition of slave-order on the powerful, and there are people who always want to be able to own others and impose their will through force and violence, something against which Christianity puts a good barrier.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "Christianity was a successful slave-revolt, where the slaves become free."
What on earth ever gave you that idea, Ron?
Christianity didn't free the slaves. It didn't even preach freeing them.
See Paul's Letter to Philemon. Paul met a runaway slave, Onesimus, the property of a Christian. According to Deuteronomy 23:15-16, "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee." "He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him." But rather than give the slave sanctuary, Paul returned him to his owner. (From OCRT.)
And Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:5: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ...." And in 1 Timothy 6:1-2: "Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit." [I.e. don't expect to be freed by Christian masters.]
Circa 340 CE, Manichean Christians had been inciting slaves of the Roman Empire to take charge of their destiny and emancipate themselves. In response, the Christian Council of Gangra issued a statement supporting slavery: "If anyone, on the pretext of religion, teaches another man's slave to despise his master and to withdraw from his service, and not serve his master with good will and all respect, let him be anathema."* This resolution became part of the Catholic church's canon law concerning slavery and was quoted as an authoritative source until the middle of the 18th century. / *M. Fiedler & L. Rabben, Ed., "Rome has spoken... A guide to forgotten Papal statements and how they have changed through the centuries," Crossroad, (1998) Page 81. (Again, from OCRT.)
So you see, all those abolitionists and Underground Railroad helpers were heretics.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreSorry, you are just missing the whole point of the Christian revolution here. Christianity discouraged Christians from holding Christian slaves, all Christians were brothers and sisters in the church, and a socially enforced loose condition for joining was emancipating the Christian slaves you owned, on your own schedule, but it was a process that was definitely going on, because widespread slavery is replaced by a different economic order in this era.
You freaked me out, so I just looked it up, and it's in the same exact Pauline epistle, the Epistle to Philemon. You should read it properly. Philemon is the Christian slaveowner, Onesimus is the fugitive slave. Paul has to decide what to do regarding Onesimus. Onesimus is returned to his master, Paul obeys secular law regarding slavery, but at the same time Paul exhorts Philemon to treat the slave not as a slave, but as a brother in Christ, and insists that they are social equals (I read this on Wikipedia just now, but it is what I remember from the New Testament). Then the master frees the slave, and they are both canonized.
It's not like the Church handed out Sainthood for no reason, this is what the main teaching on slavery was, as I understood--- the masters will eventually join the Church through social pressure, as the empire is Christianized, slaves join the church automatically, they come first. Once the master and slave both join, they are social equals in the Church, and the expectation is for the masters to gradually emancipate their slaves, without coercion, or legal obligation, just as a sign of sincere Christianity.
I should point out that this is exactly analogous to the Jewish religious emancipation, where Jews are required to free Jewish slaves after 7 years of bondage. Except, being Christian, it doesn't go by a strict timetable, and it's more of a wink-wink nudge-nudge social compact than a rigid law (as is the spirit of the religion--- the expectations for behavior in Christianity are enforced by shaming and collective will, rather than by written law).
This kind of excruciatingly slow emancipation is in conflict with the desire of abolitionists, so the texts are ambiguous on the subject, in the sense that revolt is discouraged, but at the same time emancipation is encouraged. The exhortation to obey your masters I read as an exhortation to not make revolution, but to wait for the process to complete of its own accord, as it did, over 500 years.
The effect of this teaching is that as Christianization proceeded, the slaves would be freed gradually, and the slave system was replaced by serfdom and artisan labor, with political heirarchies of land-owning and serf-control through nobility grants from the local secular authority. The Church's role was overruling secular policy it felt was not consistent with Christianity, so like a presidential veto plus a supreme court. This is the Feudal system, and it is a different economic order than the Roman slave system, where slavery was basically total and unlimited.
You were completely inverting my own memories of reading the New Testament and related historical materials, but I read only enough to form this basic picture, as this transition I was not so interested in. I was genuinely mystified at how you could come to this interpretation of the Christian slavery teaching, but I think I understand now. You are reading it based on the completely wacko interpretations of these teachings in the American slave era. I do not believe I am the one deluding myself here. Christianization was a real slave revolt, and the most successful one in history.
This doctrine was flexible and did not enforce things by decree and certainly not by direct armed revolt, but the slave system was replaced by a serf system in this time through Church action, and this is gradual and clear because you can see large slaveholding construction projects stop dead, and the whole slave economy collapses. Where did all the large slaveholders go during the dark ages? What happened to the slaveholding dynasties? They were all gone by the 7th century as every slave was freed or died.
The slavery teachings are simply not encouraging a slave revolt, rather emancipation through gradual Christanization of the whole empire. If I am wrong about this, please let me know, because otherwise I can't understand the massive social upheaval that accompanied the Christianization of Rome at all.
Modern slavery, the 18th and 19th century kind, was historically disconnected from the slavery of Rome. It began with slavery of Muslims and other non-Christians in the late midieval era, and continued with slavery in colonial regions. As I understood the events, there are two completely distinct slave-phases, the Roman one, where the majority are slaves and they are largely of the same ethnicity as the masters, and the modern slavery where a minority are slaves in remote regions, and this minority is foreign and of a different ethnicity. As I understand, the two phases are not connected by any direct historical line of slave-owning.
Also, the readings of these doctrines and texts were perverted and inverted in the American slave era, as I understand it, to understand these gradual abolitionist sentiments, which freed the ancient slaves over geological time, to instead imply that slavery is just and proper. The readings are not consistent with the interpretation of the texts in their Roman context, and really, the feeling of Northerners that Christianity and slavery are just incompatible was wholly correct.
Here is a Christian fellow saying the same thing more eloquently: http://www.biblestudytools....
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Christianity discouraged Christians from holding Christian slaves, all Christians were brothers and sisters in the church, and a condition for joining was emancipating the Christian slaves you owned...."
Not in the text. Again, 1 Timothy 6:1-2: "Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit." [I.e. don't expect to be freed by Christian masters.]
The great socio-economic changes that led to feudalism, serfdom, et al., were the result of the Fall of the Roman Empire. Attacks from outside enemies, infighting, trading troubles, troops on the edges of the Empire recalled to the core, people left to defend and govern themselves, whole new social structures replacing what had gone -- including the very modular structure called feudalism. Swear an oath to the man above, accept the oaths of men below, and you were part of a web of obligations for mutual defense.
With the Roman legions no longer drafting men and sending them across the Empire, all roads no longer led to Rome, or Constantinople. Now you were concerned with your liege lord, and beyond him, the top of your chain of command (King, Duke, whatever title he took). Unless you went on trade or message or spying missions, or there was a war, why concern yourself with anywhere else? From this point until around the invention of the bicycle, serfs and later peasants spent their lives within about a mile of their birthplaces, so that soon nearly everyone they lived near was a relative. (It's been said that the bicycle is what did away with the common sight of the Village Idiot.)
As for the rest, Ron: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreThis is complete nonsense. There has never been an abolition of slavery which did not involve an institution outlawing it explicitly, and in the case of 7th century Europe, the institution was the church. I gave you the doctrine, it's explicit 7th century Catholic doctrine that Catholics cannot own Catholic slaves, and it is effective, in that there are no slaves anymore. It is also clearly an implicit doctrine earlier, going all the way back to the beginning, although it is also not enforced in strict law, but in convention. Onesimus became a bishop in the Church, this is something that comes up later. We know he does not remain a slave. The epistle is abolitionist through and through, although also pragmatic about it.
The idea that the collapse of central authority led to emancipation is ridiculous, as slave-owners simply do not retain authority over their property through a central authority imposing it, rather through local authority using taskmasters with access to violent means of repression. The emancipation is directly as a result of the Church injunctions against slavery. The same is true in Judaism, but much earlier, as the Jewish religion emancipates all slaves after a fixed period, and that's that, a law on temporary slavery eliminates chattel slavery in less than one generation, as slaves convert to Judaism, and then the Jewish slaves become Jewish freedmen.
The collapse of Roman institution is the result of the decline in slavery, not the other way around. The whole Roman economy is built on the labor of slaves, and as the slaves become serfs, the centralization of the slave economy around the decisions of slaveholders collapses. This collapse is ongoing in the 4th-6th centuries, and it is essentially total by the time the dark ages begin. This loss of financial power weakens the military. There was nothing else going on except Christianization that weakened Rome to the point that it allowed the invasions other than the loss of the powerful slaveholding class. It doesn't matter so much by then, because power has devolved to the Church.
This is the main point of Christianity, and you miss it. Serfs were now beholden to secular royalty granted by local kings, and the royalty was held in check by clergy from doing things like reinstituting slavery, and all the private large slaveholders are history. That's the Christian revolution, and it's Christian. It's annoying that you are blind to this, as it is the single most significant transition in human civilization.
I should add that this emancipation process was completed in Israel first, where slavery was not a permanent institituion, at least not in the era of Priestly Judaism and Leviticus law. Jews were nearly all free in Palestine before the Babylonians and Romans came, they lived as autonomous agents with occasional 6 year bondsmen to repay debt, and a full reset of the financial system every 49 or 50 years, in the Jubilee. Being universally free and universally literate, of course they resisted external occupation worse than anyone, and Christianity eventually exported the same freedom outside of the confines of Judaism. They left the Jews alone because the Jews weren't the ones enslaving them.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "Serfs were now beholden to secular royalty granted by local kings...."
Depending on what you mean by "now." Slavery became serfdom in Lithuania in 1588; in Russia in two stages, from 1679 to 1723. Slavery in the French Republic (not the Kingdom) was abolished in 1794 (liberté, egalité, fraternité!), in the rest of France's holdings, not until 1848. Not exactly "the 7th century."
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "The emancipation is directly as a result of the Church injunctions against slavery. The same is true in Judaism, but much earlier...."
That must have come as a great comfort to their cargo:
"The Muslim powers of Iberia both raided for slaves and purchased slaves from European merchants, often the Jewish Radhanites, one of the few groups who could easily move between the Christian and Islamic worlds. Records of Jewish participation in the slave trade go back to the 5th century. Olivia Remie Constable wrote: 'Muslim and Jewish merchants brought slaves into al-Andalus from eastern Europe and Christian Spain, and then re-exported them to other regions of the Islamic world.'"
Ibn Khordadbeh about the Radhanites:
"They transport from the West eunuchs, female slaves, boys,..."
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "The emancipation is directly as a result of the Church injunctions against slavery."
By the 7th century AD?
And all the flittering and flying about was directly as a result of the fairy dust. Q.E.D.
One's just as much fantasy as the other. Ron, you've already read the disproof:
Christian views on slavery: "Slavery in various forms has been a part of the social environment for much of Christianity's history, spanning well over eighteen centuries. In the early years of Christianity, slavery was a normal feature of the economy and society in the Roman Empire, and this persisted in different forms and with regional differences well into the Middle Ages. Most Christian figures in that early period, such as Saint Augustine, accepted slavery as an inevitability whereas some, such as Saint Patrick (a former slave), were opposed to it. Both the Old Testament and New Testament treat slavery as a given, to the extent of (in the case of the Old Testament) laying down regulations for its 'just' practice. Historically this has presented a challenge for Christians advocating against slavery. Generally speaking, up until the 18th century Christianity accepted slavery, but had no public opinion for or against it. Eighteen centuries after the birth of Christianity (in the context of a particularly savage and rapacious slave system), the abolition movement took shape across the globe...."
The attempt to paint early Christianity as anti-slavery is historical revisionism.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Christianization was a real slave revolt, and the most successful one in history."
No, Ron. For crying out loud, actually read some history instead of guessing like this.
Even if you have to start with Wikipedia. Here, it's this easy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Rome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_medieval_Europe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_slavery --"Slavery in various forms has been a part of the social environment for much of Christianity's history, spanning well over eighteen centuries. In the early years of Christianity, slavery was a normal feature of the economy and society in the Roman Empire, and this persisted in different forms and with regional differences well into the Middle Ages. Most Christian figures in that early period, such as Saint Augustine, accepted slavery as an inevitability whereas some, such as Saint Patrick (a former slave), were opposed to it. Both the Old Testament and New Testament treat slavery as a given, to the extent of (in the case of the Old Testament) laying down regulations for its 'just' practice. Historically this has presented a challenge for Christians advocating against slavery. Generally speaking, up until the 18th century Christianity accepted slavery, but had no public opinion for or against it. Eighteen centuries after the birth of Christianity (in the context of a particularly savage and rapacious slave system), the abolition movement took shape across the globe...."
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreSorry, you have no idea what you are talking about, and you are repeating Confederate stupidity regarding Christian history. I reviewed the material yesterday, the review did very little, it just shifted the dates of emancipation around--- I thought slavery was totally eliminated in the 6th century, and it was actually eliminated in the 7th.
The major role of Christianity, and the largest factor making it spread was in gradually abolishing the institution of slavery. There's a reason people count the years since Jesus's birth, and it's nothing to do with miracles. Slavery was completely abolished throughout Christendom by the 7th century, a process which began with the spread of Christianity and dramatically increased as the Christian reformers started to have an influence on secular policy, and instituted ethical reforms. It becomes an explicit injunction in the Church to disallow Christian owning Christian slaves past the 7th century, and Europe was entirely slave-free between the 7th and 12th century. The 13th century slaves were Muslim, and the Muslim slaves pollute Europe with this again, but the institution was never all that widespread like it was in the colonies, and it is banned through secular legislation in the European countries that reinstated it in the 19th century.
What you are right about is that there was some debate in the early Church regarding slavery, the religion wasn't uniformly abolitionist, although it was egalitarian. The debate lasted a long time. Still, the emancipatory character of the religion is there right from the start, it is in the decrees of equality of Christians, and it applies to slaves (and freeing them) explcitly in the Epistle to Philemon and the Catholic tradition regarding Philemon freeing his slave. The canonization of the Epistle is controversial, either because it is too abolitionist in sentiment or not abolitionist enough, but there is an explicit denouncements of the slave trade in Paul, and .explicit recognition of equality of slave and master to make abolition inevitable, and the process does complete, although in geological time frame.
The statements of St. Augustine are coming in the 3rd century, before the religion is established enough to do the major reform. There were high-class fellows in the Church, who as always, have no clue about anything, and want to maintain class priviledge. There was a debate about the character of the church in the canonization era, but you can see that the abolitionism stayed, because it completed. There were those who suggested the Jewish method of limited slavery, but the outright abolitionists won out.
I should say that Jews also abolished slavery outright in this era, although when they did it, I don't know.
It was not an official policy until the 6th century or 7th century, but it is codified in Catholic doctrine that Christians may not own Christian slaves explicitly the 7th century, and abolitionism is the only real secular point of Christianity.
You are speaking about Confederate interpretations of Christianity ignoring the real historical purpose. I don't have any patience for this, as you are totally wrong. My "guessing" (which is just mental shorthand for previous reading about this) is completely historically accurate. Please don't continue with this intellectual dishonesty, and review the real church policy on slavery properly.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "What you are right about is that there was some debate in the early Church regarding slavery.... / The statements of St. Augustine are coming in the 3rd century, before the religion is established enough to do the major reform."
How does that explain the 13th century views of St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), that it was "appropriate and socially useful in a world impaired by original sin"? He "takes the patristic theme ... that slavery exists as a consequence of original sin and says that it exists according to the 'second intention' of nature; it would not have existed in the state of original innocence according to the 'first intention' of nature; in this way he can explain the Aristotelian teaching that some people are slaves 'by nature' like inanimate instruments, because of their personal sins; for since the slave cannot work for his own benefit slavery is necessarily a punishment. He accepts the symbiotic master-slave relationship as being mutually beneficial. There should be no punishment without some crime, so slavery as a penalty is a matter of positive law. St Thomas' explanation continued to be expounded at least until the end of the 18th century."
And please note that he was a Catholic authority, not a Confederate or neo-Confederate.
"I should say that Jews also abolished slavery outright in this era, although when they did it, I don't know."
Did anyone ever tell the Radhanites? (Recall: "Records of Jewish participation in the slave trade go back to the 5th century.")
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "I am sorry, you simply have not read the gospels at all."
But I have. Starting rather longer ago than you've been alive.
I've come to different conclusions than yours (and many other people's).
But that, as you know, is not an indication of knowing nothing about the subject.
"There is no way in heck that any of that stuff can be read as a preparation for a military revolt."
As it's set down now, no... or almost no ("sell your cloak and buy a sword"). But if we're to believe Peter (even before the rooster crowed) three times, then he never knew Jesus at all. Oh wait. He was willing to deny things that might put him in danger. Do you think that might include things like, say, planning rebellion, once his leader had been caught and executed? After that, wouldn't everything be meek and submissive and just as pacifist as it could be? It's amazing that "sell your cloak and buy a sword" survived the whitewashing... but it did, and there it is.
"The Jewish revolt of 66 AD was JEWISH not Christian...."
And Jesus was Jewish not Christian (he didn't come to preach to Gentiles, remember?); if he'd gotten around to doing anything with those swords and a horde of followers, that revolt might have come 30 years earlier.
"The Jesus followers were nothing like the Manson followers, as they were all Greek...."
But that was after Peter's treif-picnic dream, which was after his leader's death. Are you back-projecting this onto the Jesus followers during his lifetime? No, those were all Jews. Really, I think you're the one not understanding what went on.
=============
Had to repost; Disqus pended version with synonym of "rooster"!Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreHa Ha, yes, Disqus doesn't understand the subtlety of "rooster". Sorry for "you didn't read the gospels", I see you did, and I appreciate the independent interpretation. But I think you were looking at it the wrong way, looking to extract a historical interpretation out of it by interpreting the events causally, and I think this is largely a mistake, because there is no independent solid description of any historical events that led up to this, and they are not necessary. I take it as a snapshot of the spiritual doctrines of the time when they were written, not as any kind of accurate description of any historical events that led to this doctrine, which are lost to history.
I don't consider the gospels as a reliable historical record, any more than I consider, say, exodus as a reliable historical record. When you try to figure out what could possibly be the historical events behind the text, you are doing something other than reading the text and extracting the spiritual guidance that it is giving, and you tend to focus on incidental passages, like "sell your cloak and buy a sword", rather than the main message in the text.
The Peter treif-picnic may post-date the crucifiction, but is pre-dates the writing of the gospels, so all that it tells you is that acceptance of Jesus is not dependent on accepting Mosaic dietary law, which just lowers the barrier for the religion to spread.
I am projecting this "back" to Jesus, because the texts were written after all the events were already complete, so they are made self-consistent teleologically by the chroniclers. I don't consider them to be historical record in any form sufficiently unaltered to divine what actually went on in the sense of historical fact, so I read them as a unified spiritual whole, with backward and forward influence, like Exodus back-influences Genesis.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "I don't consider the gospels as a reliable historical record...."
Well, obviously neither do I; if anything I was accusing their "history" of unreliability due to fearful scrubbing. But even taken as doctrinal texts, the same self-censorial distortion issue applies: if the original doctrine of Jesus had contained ever-so-earthly political elements, even violent expulsion of the Roman overlords to resume a Jewish kingdom, not a trace of those could have been allowed to be written, thereafter possibly seized by Rome as evidence and used to crucify every single Christian. So both history and doctrine would be subject to the same "we're all pacifists here" revisionism, only for that to be falsified once Christianity held power.
In parallel with the written Gospels came oral traditions -- such as how we do things and why. Some of them had started to diversify into schools or denominations even before the Council of Elvira in AD 306, and were debated there, with the losers getting a brand new penalty: anathema. Not quite so much sweetness and light there....
And I will idly note, in passing, that there was plenty of room in that oral tradition to pass along less pacifist intentions than had been written, without leaving any evidence for the Empire to seize....
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreI get your point, and it is interesting, but I can't agree that it was falsified, the pacifism is a major doctrine, and the relative peacefulness of the Christian revolution, as compared to say, the Spartacus revolt, or the Jewish wars, attests that it was not a false front. The vestigial remnants of militarism in the gospels can be considered a hidden coding of some lost original militaristic teaching, but I think it is a mistake and a disservice to the text. I think any military references are always better thought of as an explicit metaphor for the coming spiritual battle. Even the "sell your cloak and buy a sword", and it is not to be interpreted literally, but in the same way all Christians have standardly interpreted it.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "... the relative peacefulness of the Christian revolution...."
After we just went over the slaughter of all rival religions' clergy (other than Judaism's), which made going back impossible? "Relative peacefulness" compared to the total slaughter of EVERY member as in the Spartacus revolt or incidents like Masada, yes... but to reproduce THAT degree of slaughter, the Christians would have had to try killing EVERY pagan human being in the Roman Empire -- a huge undertaking, and they might have found themselves a teensy bit outnumbered, don't you think? And left with a huge stack of corpses even if they won? Did you even think that through? Forced conversion of the non-clergy, after the clergy were dead, got them the conquest they wanted anyway.
"The vestigial remnants of militarism in the gospels can be considered a hidden coding of some lost original militaristic teaching...."
Oh, not just in the Gospels! Christians were calling themselves "soldiers of Christ" well before they'd acquired the Roman legions via Constantine -- and referring to all non-Christians as "civilians", which is what "pagans" actually meant in legion-slang. (Not "country-dweller"; in this sense it applied just as well to town- and city-dwellers.)
See the OED's "Additions and Emendations", p.4092 (Vol.II) Compact Edition:
"Pagan. Etymology. The explanation of L. paganus in the sense 'non-Christian, heathen', as arising out of that of 'villager, rustic', given by Orosius (a Spaniard) c. 417, has been shown to be chronologically and historically untenable, for this use of the word goes back to Tertullian c. 202, when paganism was still the public and dominant religion, and even appears, according to Lanciani, in an epitaph of the 2nd cent. The explanation is now found in the L. use of paganus as = 'civilian, non-militant', opposed to miles 'soldier, one of the army'. The Christians called themselves milites 'enrolled soldiers' of Christ, members of his militant church, and applied to non-Christians the term applied by soldiers to all who were 'not enrolled in the army'. Cf. Tertullian, De Corona Militis, xi, 'Apud hunc [Christum] tam miles est paganus fidelis quam paganus est miles infidelis'. ..."
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreRelative peacefulness is exactly what it was. The transition was Constantine accepting Christianity by a slow conversion process in discussions with one of his family members who was Christian, and then some time later another emperor making the religion the official state religion. That's what happened, it wasn't a violent revolution in any sense.
The persecution of pagans was a component too, after the Christians were dominant, but, really, the pagans had propped up the slave system of Rome for centuries, I hate to say it, but they really had it coming, and persecuting them is no more unusual than people persecuting Nazis today (although we are more civilized about it). The pagan system in Rome justified slavery, murder of slaves in arenas, horrors you can't imagine.
It wasn't conquest, it was social pressure to convert, and directed localized killings at best to remove Pagan strongholds that resisted Christianization. It wasn't a bloodbath like Masada or the conquest of Jerusalem circa 66AD, and although I don't support this kind of thing, it was better than what was going on before.
I think you are trying to read in violence into one of the most peaceful revolutions in history. You can see the same thing again in the conversion of the Germans, in the conversion of the British, the Irish, and so on, there are a dozen or more examples of Christianizing revolutions. Each of these followed the same pattern, proselyzing, conversion, slowly working up the power structure until the leaders capitulate, and then cleaning up the residual paganism by social coercion and a small number of executions at best. That's the standard pattern, and I don't believe it was any different in the Roman Empire.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "The pagan system in Rome justified slavery...."
The Christian Bible justified slavery too, as the slave-owning South of the USA kept pointing out to the frustrated abolitionists of the North, before the Civil War. I already gave you citations and links to the OCRT website for more. Slaves are admonished to serve their masters faithfully, as they would serve Christ; masters are encouraged to treat their slaves well, but NOT ordered to free them. Paul returns a runaway slave to his Christian master when even Deuteronomy says NOT to do that but to give him sanctuary. The one parable in which Jesus discusses slaves getting "stripes" (from whipping), he says nothing about the desirability of their being freed.
Thus, and hereafter I quote the Southern Poverty Law Center:
[One significant neo-Confederate book is] Southern Slavery As It Was by Steve Wilkins and Douglas Wilson, which... rehashes pro-slavery arguments of the mid-nineteenth century to argue that the practice was benign, sanctioned by God and was used as a "pretext" by Unionists to prosecute a war fought over the "biblical meaning of constitutional government" in an effort to suppress Christianity.
A central aspect of neo-Confederacy is this intersection with theology, which has produced a uniquely neo-Confederate reading of Christianity. Advocates maintain that the Civil War was a struggle over the future of this religion. In this assessment, the Confederacy was a bastion of supposedly orthodox Christians fighting against heretical Union troops. Abolitionists are understood to have misinterpreted the Bible, which is held up by neo-Confederates as condoning slavery. As a result, slave owners are depicted as pious observers of Biblical teachings whereas those who opposed slavery necessarily opposed this Biblical lesson and thus the word of God. ...
The upshot of this interpretation is that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery. Rather, it was a theological war fought to ensure that Christianity would survive in the United States. Given this view, emancipation was an affront to Biblical teachings and thus, when the Confederacy was defeated, so too was the centrality of Christianity to American society. Consequently, neo-Confederates demand a return to communities founded upon what they term orthodox Christianity. ...
Elected officials, most notably former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS), have spoken at meetings of the Council of Conservative Citizens, expressing sympathy for the organization's positions (often, bad publicity forced quick retractions). Other politicians were members of the League of the South while in office, for example the late Alabama Republican State Senator Charles Davidson between 1994 and 1998. As a result, conservative columnist Stanley Crouch felt moved to write in 1999 that "Neo-Confederates with a disguised racial policy have risen to the top of the G.O.P." and journalist Peter Applebome wrote in Dixie Rising, "it's hard to know these days where the Confederacy ends and the Republican party begins."Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreThese are ridiculous Confederate Southern misinterpretations of the purpose of Pauline teachings. Do you really think that those Southerners understood the purpose and principles of Christianity? Don't you think they were reading in their self-interest?
The type of chattel slavery these southerners condoned was the kind historically removed by Christianity. It is contrary to the traditional understanding of these verses to read them as condoning slavery, although that was a common Protestant misreading in the colonial era, for obvious reasons.
Paul returning Onesimus to Philemon is NOT an example of Paul condoning slavery--- it is an example of how Christianity deals with master/slave conflict and the justness of freedom for the slave. The slave and master are first to be reconciled, they become brothers in the Church, and then with enough time, the master sets the slave free because it is the right thing to do (or usually more accurately, as a result of a significant social shaming process if he doesn't).
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreTaking your points in reverse order:
(1) Where is it written that Philemon ever freed Onesimus?* Aren't you simply reading into the text what you want to see there, in the absence of any actual trace? This is like your debating for a week based on blind assumptions without once actually checking the facts. I've seen this done so many times before, people blustering and BSing their way through arguments, insisting on their utter rightness while displaying to everyone their utter ignorance of the subject -- and it is always a sheer waste of everybody else's time.
(2) "The type of chattel slavery these southerners condoned was the kind historically removed by Christianity. It is contrary to the traditional understanding of these verses to read them as condoning slavery, although that was a common Protestant reading in the modern era...."
Interesting. It was only in 1860 that serfdom was abolished in (Eastern Orthodox) Russia, outright slavery having been abolished in 1723. And I've already posted for you that Catholic canon law preserved the 4th century Council of Gangra's anathema decree until the mid-18th century. So on the historical record it was NOT just the Protestants who had traditionally condoned slavery. Why in the face of the easily ascertainable record would you assert such a clear falsehood?
(3) "These are ridiculous Confederate Southern misinterpretations of the role of Pauline teachings. Do you really think that those Southerners understood the purpose and principles of Christianity correctly?"
By now surely you realize I'm fully opposed to the neo-Confederate agenda, and in particular regard their goal of "theonomy" (religious law superseding secular law at every level of society) as a nightmare to be fought at all costs. Also, I'm very happy the Union won the Civil War, re-united the nation, freed the slaves, etc. I'm not a Christian, though *cough* some of my best friends are Christians *cough* -- I'm a Humanist, and I believe in treating people decently.** So I'm not on the neo-Confederates' side, and they assuredly are not on mine.
But condoning slavery actually is one of the [shameful] aspects of historical Christianity, just as slavery's part of American history. Denying that is like Germans or pro-Germans trying to deny the Holocaust -- it doesn't succeed in scrubbing the history away, it only deepens the stain.
What the neo-Confederates are doing instead is going back to the mid-19th century slave-owners' theological position, to accept the history of slavery and call it good. (I needn't tell you what the pro-German equivalent would be.)
Yes, St. Paul might agree with the neo-Confederates. And Martin Luther might agree with those (hypothetical) pro-Germans. Some major Christian writers had some nasty attitudes.
_____________________
* Yes, some people "traditionally" like to say he did, and both are canonized... but Martin Luther is among those who conclude he didn't, and that Paul was obeying secular law.** "Decently" is not meant as a weasel-word; to me it's shorthand for "with courtesy and compassion."
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreOutright slavery was abolished in Catholic Christendom in the 7th century, there are no more slaves in Europe by that time. The modern slavery and the slavery on the periphery is something different from the main bulk of Catholic Europe. I am not sure about the Eastern Orthodox history, they might not have abolished slavery.
The freeing of the slave is strongly encouraged by the letter, if you actually READ IT, the social equality of slaves in the Chruch is definitely explicitly stated, and Paul takes upon himself the debts of the slave, and asks Philemon to consider that he owes all his soul to Christianity, and to consider this price against the price of the slave's debt. It is accepted in Catholic tradition that Philemon freed the slave, the same slave reappears later in the New Testament as a Bishop, and I don't think he was moonlighting as a Bishop and a slave by day. It is clear from later Catholic doctrine that slavery became unacceptable, and you can't falsify this, because this is the major historical break between slave economies and feudal economies.
St. Paul would not agree with the confederates, but it doesn't matter. I am not advocating theocracy here, I am just objecting to falsified readings of the purpose of Christian religion. I am more a humanist myself, but I try to be honest about the history.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "Outright slavery was abolished in Catholic Christendom in the 7th century, there are no more slaves in Europe by that time."
That must have come as a shock to Pope Gregory I, who died four years into the 7th century: seeing fair-haired Angle children up for sale in a slave market, he joked, Non Angli, sed Angeli ["Not Angles, but Angels"]. Within the British Isles after 1100, slavery faded away as uneconomical.
Romania is also part of Europe, no? "Slavery existed on the territory of present-day Romania from before the founding of the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia in 13th–14th century, until it was abolished in stages during the 1840s and 1850s."
Many more quotes available, but just read through "History of slavery."
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreI will not read anything more, I verified it sufficiently because you questioned it, and so can anyone else, and there is no point in debates regarding established historical facts that are not disputed by anyone except here in this discussion. You are simply wrong about this, and it is up to you to read enough about it, realize it, and say "oops, sorry", but I don't hold my breath, as folks like you are usually incapable of admitting they are wrong even to themselves.
Christian slavery of Christians is removed in Christendom by explicit Church decree in the 7th century, which is before 699, not 604, although slavery was already rare (perhaps extremely rare, I don't know) in 604. The declines in slave population is, according are supposed to begin in the 3rd or 4th century, as I suppose is estimated from estimated economic data, I don't care, as all I cared about is the approximate slave population numbers. I found the name of the church fellow who pushed through the abolition, but it is also clear from the socioeconomic changes and political system changes that this is the end of a long process and not a sudden thing.
The SECOND slavery abolition in the 18th century, and 19th century is abolishing the SECOND period of slavery from ~1250-1865. This is three times further removed from ancient slavery in time as we are removed from the second abolition. I explained this to you several times, but you are obviously decided you would rather dogmatically play pretend games online to avoid losing face.
Have fun doing it, but it's pointless to make up stuff online, as people can check for themselves. Online, there is no face to lose, so it is also pointless. Just learn it and move on.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "I will not read anything more...."
Of course not, you'd rather close your eyes, cover your ears, and shout NA NA NA NA...
"Christian slavery of Christians is removed in the 7th century...."
A big difference from your previous "Outright slavery was abolished....", since it permits Christians to own non-Christian slaves -- but actually Christians could continue to own Christian slaves too.
"The SECOND slavery abolition in the 18th century, and 19th century is abolishing the SECOND period of slavery from ~1250-1865."
Catholic Church and slavery -- a few excerpts:
Christians enslaved between the 7th and 12th centuries:
"Christian people could be enslaved as a criminal punishment, or for debt, or sell themselves or their children. In 655 the Ninth Council of Toledo, in an attempt to persuade priests to remain celibate, ruled that all children of clerics were to be automatically enslaved. ... In 1089, Pope Urban II ruled at the Synod of Melfi that the wives of priests were to be enslaved.
"... disabilities of all kinds were enacted and as far as possible enforced against the wives and children of ecclesiastics. Their offspring were declared to be of servile condition .... The earliest decree in which the children were declared to be slaves, the property of the Church, and never to be enfranchised, seems to have been a canon of the Synod of Pavia in 1018. Similar penalties were promulgated later on against the wives and concubines (see the Synod of Melfi, 1189, can. xii), who by the very fact of their unlawful connection with a subdeacon or clerk of higher rank became liable to be seized as slaves ..."But back to the top:
"Throughout Christian antiquity and the Middle Ages, theologians generally followed St. Augustine in holding that although slavery could not be justified under natural law it was not absolutely forbidden by that law. As a consequence the Roman Catholic Church, up until the modern era, came to accept certain types of slavery as a social consequence of the current human condition, connected by some with original sin...."
"The Church did succeed in almost entirely enforcing that a free Christian could not be enslaved, for example when a captive in war, but this was not consistently applied throughout history, as in the case of Pope Paul III who sanctioned the enslavement of baptised Christians in Rome. ..." [see other cases below]
"Although some Catholic clergy, religious orders and Popes owned slaves, and the naval galleys of the Papal States were to use captured Muslim galley slaves, Roman Catholic teaching began to turn more strongly against 'unjust' forms of slavery in general, beginning in 1435, prohibiting the enslavement of the recently baptised, culminating in pronouncements by Pope Paul III in 1537. ..."
(Though see 'Pope Paul III and slavery': "In 1545 Paul repealed an ancient law that allowed slaves to claim their freedom under the Emperor's statue on Capital Hill, in view of the number of homeless people and tramps in the city of Rome. The decree included those who had become Christians after their enslavement and those born to Christian slaves. The right of inhabitants of Rome to publicly buy and sell slaves of both sexes was affirmed. Stogre (1992) asserts that the lifting of restrictions was due to a shortage of slaves in Rome.")
"Catholic missionaries such as the Jesuits... also owned slaves.... Debate about the morality of slavery continued throughout this period, with some books critical of slavery being placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Holy Office between 1573-1826. Capuchin missionaries were excommunicated for calling for the emancipation of black slaves in the Americas. ..."
"...[S]ome American bishops continued to support slave-holding interests until the abolition of slavery. In 1866 The Holy Office of Pope Pius IX affirmed that, subject to conditions, it was not against divine law for a slave to be sold, bought or exchanged."
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreNot exactly "NA NA NA", more like "come back when you have more intellectual honesty". Ok, you are acknowledging the main slavery reforms now, although I would prefer it if you say outright "Chrisitianity was a slave revolt", because that's exactly what it was. The emancipation is the main reason people go around revering Christmas all over the world, more or less as they revere a Juneteenth.
The doctrines about slavery you are talking about are crazy isolated exceptions to the otherwise universal rule of emancipation, and they are analogous to debt-slavery in Judaism, and I don't know anything about them, nor do I care about these details so much. I accept that there is a complicated dance of pro and anti slavery forced through the early midieval era, but but you must also accept that a doctrine that frees 99.9% of all slaves and puts the remainder under conditions of non-absolute non-generational servitude cannot be considered "condoning of slavery" in any form. It is an abolition of ancient slavery, replacing it with various forms of penal slavery and debt-slavery used to enforce social law.
The ancient widespread majority slavery is beat back to the point where it is an extremely unusual condition, essentially abolished among the Christian populations of Europe. The condition that you can own non-Christian slaves is not as much a problem as it seems, at least not in the midieval era, as this does not lead to generational servitude, because of conversion. That is, it doesn't lead to generational servitude until people run away to distant colonies and import large numbers of non-Christian folks to serve as slaves without emancipation on conversion, or create protestant Churches which temporarily turn away from the doctrine of liberation. It's analogous to the doctrines of ancient Jews, which also required emancipation upon conversion, but it was not a problem among the Jews either, as male children of slaves must be circumcized, allowing for easy conversion, and the practical result of Jewish law is that ancient Judea is free of the scourge of absolute generational servitude, probably quite a while before the Babylonians invade, and certainly before the Romans come. This doctrine is what distinguishes monotheism from other practices, any religion that led to ancient slave emancipation is more or less monotheistic.
I agree that the modern emancipation is more total and more permanent than the first Christian emancipation, because it is enforced by anambiguous secular law and unmodifiable religious decree today. But the religious emancipation of the early middle ages more or less removed slavery from Europe entirely. The abolitionist interpretations of Christianity are dominant through Europe until modern times, they are only perversely interpreted as condoning slavery in the Confederate south, and this is not a Catholic doctrine, those people are all Protestant and make up their own slavery-condoning denomination. The slaves in the South, although largely illiterate, still picked up on the purpose and message of Christianity, pretty much only the slaves (and the abolitionist northerners) understood what it's all about, and embraced it more than the slave-owners in this period. To this day, the African American community is very committed to Christian religion, and this is tied to the recent experience of servitude.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "... 'Chrisitianity was a slave revolt'.... The emancipation is the main reason people go around revering Christmas all over the world, more or less as they revere a Juneteenth."
Oh, Ron. No doubt a lot of people would like to spread that impression. And in the 19th century many Protestants were abolitionists, for a case in point, but then they were heretics in that matter (recall that Papal doctrine condoned slavery even as late as 1866). So you're engaging in wishful thinking and, bluntly, making up a history that's better than the real thing.
Just as I've been earnestly assured online, on more than one occasion by different people, that the Latter-Day Saints helped run the Underground Railroad --which likewise was complete historical revisionism, as Utah was a slaveholding territory, LDS up until Juneteenth did own slaves, and what Brigham Young thought both of slavery (PRO) and of abolitionists (CON) is vividly on record.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreI have to agree with you completely regarding post 1300 Christianity, it backtracked on this accomplishment in a shameful and reprehensible way, and forgot its founding purpose. But this is a perversion of the intention of the aims of the religion. The perversion in the US in Mormonism is especially pronounced, but in all Southern denominations it was perverted in the same way, to claim that it encourages unlimited chattel slavery. Chattel slavery is what Christianity is designed to eradicate, and it worked nearly as well as Judaism eradicated it in Judea in an earlier era. while it worked in the transition from ancient times to midieval times, it stopped working in the modern era, both because it was splintered, and also because Popes were always on the side of power.
I am not a Christian, or an idealist, I just try to give credit where credit is due. The transformation away from ancient majority chattel slavery is clearly Christian, as it happens simultaneously with Christianization, although at a glacial pace.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "I have to agree with you completely regarding post 1300 Christianity...."
Well, I thank you for 500 years, at any rate. (Assuming ~1800-cutoff.)
But what about those citations of 7th-12th century pro-slavery decisions?
Those didn't in any way impede your firm belief that there were no Christian slaves by then? (Like, say, clergy's children and wives or mistresses?)
"... it backtracked on this accomplishment in a shameful and reprehensible way...."
Not if it never accomplished that in the first place, which (as noted in detail) is the case.
"... and forgot its founding purpose."
So, unlike some other proposals (e.g. redemption of sins, saving souls from either Hell or this material world), you say ending legal, corporeal slavery on Earth was Christianity's "founding purpose"? Wow!
Yet in the parable where Jesus mentioned slaves getting flogged(!), he said nothing at all about them getting freed:
Luke 12:47-48 "And that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes, but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few."Notice the tone there. Jesus does not seem to disapprove of the master flogging the slaves; if anything, he's holding the slave-owner's judgment up as analogous to God's judgment. Where's the disapproval of slavery in that?
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "The abolitionist interpretations of Christianity are dominant through Europe until modern times, they are only perversely interpreted as condoning slavery in the Confederate south, and this is not a Catholic doctrine, those people are all Protestant and make up their own slavery-condoning denomination."
(1) It's not a Catholic doctrine? You've been provided with a link to and quotes from the article 'Catholic Church and slavery', specifically showing that that the Church condoned slavery even in 1866, that it excommunicated Capuchin missionaries who called for the emancipation of American black slaves, that it placed on the Index of Forbidden Books such books as were critical of slavery. Catholic bishops in the South supported Papal doctrine in defense of slavery. (Pius IX even sent Jefferson Davis a letter and autographed photo, addressed to the "Honorable President of the Confederate States of America.")
(2) [T]hose people are all Protestant? What, including the Jesuits and Catholic missionaries earlier mentioned as owning slaves? Do you have a reading disorder? Twenty of the Confederacy's generals (including its first general officer), its Secretary of the Navy, hundreds of its officers, thousands of its soldiers, were Catholic. Consider Maryland, on the south side of the Mason-Dixon line, which was founded as a refuge for persecuted Catholics. Because it surrounds DC on three sides (it donated the land), Lincoln had to jail its pro-slavery state legislators in order to make it vote loyalty to the Union (which later exempted it from the Emancipation Proclamation); just over half the blacks in that state were slaves in 1860; and nearly a quarter of its military volunteers joined the Confederate side anyway.
So Maryland, though South, was not the *Confederate* South (except for at least its jailed legislators and 23% of its soldiers), I'll grant you... but it certainly did condone slavery up to the War, and that was in a *Catholic* state with justification from *Catholic* doctrine. This makes hash of your "they are only perversely interpreted as condoning slavery in the Confederate south, and this is not a Catholic doctrine". Or if you want to try saving that claim by considering Maryland "Confederate" at heart and only "Union" by compulsion (vote-fixing), it makes hash of "those people are all Protestant"... although those Maryland volunteers wearing Confederate gray make hash of both claims at once.
Oh wait. Catholic Louisiana did go Confederate (47% of the entire state population were slaves), so your claims are hash anyway.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "... puts the remainder under conditions of non-absolute non-generational servitude...."
NON-generational? Did you miss the bit about the child of a slave being also a slave? (Unless he or she could get to that one statue of the Emperor in Rome... before even that escape route was closed, due to a shortage of slaves?)
"... this does not lead to generational servitude..... ... it doesn't lead to generational servitude...."
You keep saying that, as though saying it would make it so.
When the child of a slave is a slave, and the child of that slave is a slave, etc., that's generational servitude. Unless you have some special different personal meaning for that phrase?
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "You can see the same thing again in the conversion of the Germans, in the conversion of the British, the Irish, and so on...."
In the case of the Irish, Britain north of the Thames, and other areas reached first by what was called the "Celtic Church" (a briefly out-of-contact branch founded by St. Patrick), you can thank what Patrick himself bemoaned as his poor education: he had never read the works of his contemporary, St. Augustine of Hippo, who justified conversion by fire and sword. Thus Patrick converted by peaceful persuasion, as did those he taught, and those they taught, and so on.
When contact with the Roman Church was re-established, discrepancies in calculating the date of Easter and so forth were worked out, and Roman officials finally visited Ireland itself, the clergy at blessed Patrick's old cathedral eagerly hoped their founder's site would be given primacy on the island. The Romans frowned; this Patrick sounded altogether too friendly with pagans for a priest-missionary! Oh no, they were reassured, Patrick fought monumental battles with the druids, turning them into great stone pillars -- why, see there, and there, and that circle of stones over there! And his cathedral got its primacy.
The growth of Christianity on the Continent otherwise was not so peaceful. Germany, you say? What of the Germanic Saxons? Converted by "fire and sword", after thirty years of war. (I suppose Charlemagne must have been told about St. Augustine's idea.)
"Each of these followed the same pattern...."
Do you tell me so. Do you tell me so, indeed.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreI do keep telling you so, but you keep asserting the opposite without any evidence. The military events and the conversion events are largely separate, and the imposition of Christianity is through a social dominance process which is violent only after it is already dominant.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "... the imposition of Christianity is through a social dominance process which is violent only after it is already dominant."
There you go, Ron, you've perceived one of the Secret Doctrines all by yourself!
Christianity will appear to be meek, mild, submissive, and pacifist, for as long as it's under the thumb of overwhelming superior force; but once it has the chance to turn the tables, it will use coercion and even lethal violence ("fire and sword") to impose its own will. Thus the Inquisition and the Crusades.
On this point of deceptiveness, see also "stealth candidates" for school boards.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreThat's not a "secret doctrine", that's a structural property of nearly all movements that become powerful, with the best exception being modern liberalism (although this becomes violent too in America in suppressing Shay's rebellion, and other monetary insurrections). There's relatively little of that in Christian history as compared to previous ancient history, precisely because the major doctrine opposes violence. But there is still some, because there is still power, and where there is power there is violence. The imposition of opinion is at first voluntary when the movement is weak, as it has no other choice at this point, and then looks for excuses to become violent when it is the majority opinion. This violence is what modern liberalism is designed to counteract, by imposing individual freedoms. It has nothing to do with any secret violent teachings, these are just not there in Christianity, any more than Jews have injunctions to slaughter non-Jews and drink their blood.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "It has nothing to do with any secret violent teachings, these are just not there in Christianity, any more than Jews have injunctions to slaughter non-Jews and drink their blood."
That's wretchedly poor parallelism, Ron, because we know what happens both when Christians actually attain power (they DO become violent toward non-Christians) and when Jews attain power (they do NOT slaughter-and-drink-the-blood-of non-Jews).
Or are you about to treat us to some new creative history à la Maimon?
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "... in the same way all Christians have standardly interpreted it."
Ohhhh, Ron. Was that intentional?
Excerpt from David Corn's The Lies of George W. Bush (2004):
Asked which rendition of the Ten Commandments he preferred — Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish — he replied, "the standard one," suggesting he had no clue each religion recognizes different versions.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt is not true that each denomination recognizes a different interpretation of these gospel quotes. They all interpret it as a struggle for dominance, without bloodshed, by conversion. Besides, Christianity was under unified leadership at that time, it hadn't split into denominations yet. That's the standard interpretation, and it is universal as far as I know, certainly today, and I don't see evidence that it wasn't universal in the past. Your examples are just not persuasive.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Besides, Christianity was under unified leadership at that time, it hadn't split into denominations yet."
At what time are you speaking of, Ron? AD 325, First Council of Nicaea? Athanasians vs Arians and Meletians? AD 340, Council of Gangra declares Manicheans anathema? Manicheans fall under the umbrella of Gnostic-Christians, though there were other such sects around -- but by the late 300s, being a Gnostic was a death-penalty offense, and that was under the Christianized Empire.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreThe gnostics didn't dispute this interpretation either, but I am speaking about the centralized church, the one that made policy that's written down that we can study, who didn't dispute this interpretation any more than anyone else. NOBODY disputes the nonmilitaristic interpretation, it's just something snarky atheists point out.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "The gnostics didn't dispute this interpretation either, but I am speaking about the centralized church, the one that made policy that's written down that we can study, who didn't dispute this interpretation any more than anyone else. NOBODY disputes the nonmilitaristic interpretation...."
Yah, funny thing about that: it was Augustine of Hippo, the former Manichean, who wrote the Church's theological justification for "fire and sword" conversion -- y'know, the one Patrick didn't read before going back to convert Ireland, lucky Ireland -- and that upheld campaigns like Charlemagne's and the Conquistadors'.
And it was the Gnostics who had an automatic death sentence placed on them by the Christianized Empire by the latter 300's -- despite that nonmilitaristic Church interpretation you keep insisting existed....
And when the Gnostics popped up again as the Cathars (or Albigensians)?
Why, that was when Pope Innocent III launched the Albigensian Crusade, a twenty-year-long war wiping out between 100,000 and 1,000,000 people in Southern France -- and oddly enough the origin of the phrase (rough translation) used during the Vietnam War, "Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out!" [Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.]
And you can hardly get more nonmilitaristic than that.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreCriminality had nothing to do with German persecution of Jews, as there was no exceptional criminality statistics among Jews in Germany, and the Jews were assimilated. The real motivation is to remove monotheism and restore the pre-Christian ideals of the strong dominating the weak ruthlessly, as this is what Nietzsche advocated.
I read more about Yiddish. The main problem here is the Khazar hypothesis is still ridiculed, when recent genetics and good history make it clear that it is likely the correct origin of at least a large part if not the majority, of Ashkenazi Jews. Once the Khazar hypothesis is accepted, the story of French migration becomes patently ridiculous, and the origin of German Jews is clearly from the East. This favors the Eastern theories of Yiddish origin, but not with certainty. The academic discourse is being polluted because the main point--- Khazar origin--- is suppressed.
I don't know why it is suppressed, really. A lot of Ashkenazi Jews told me that Sephardi Jews were considered "more authentic" in the Ashkenazi community, with better ties to historical Biblical Judaism. The Khazar origin of Ashkenazi Jews should not be threatening to Jews at all. What's wrong with being Khazar? People are people. Central Asia is a nice place.
Anyway, once the Khazar thing is respectable among normal people, instead of just Neo-Nazis (a certain percentage of neo-Nazis support this hypothesis also), then you can determine the linguistic origins of Yiddish in an objective way which doesn't involve infighting between bigoted academics. I don't know enough to say which of these folks is right, but the historical guy, the one who said it comes from France, is definitely wrong, because Ashkenazis didn't come from France, they came from the East for sure.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Criminality had nothing to do with German persecution of Jews, as there was no exceptional criminality statistics among Jews in Germany...."
Of course not, Ron, and I explicitly said (look above) that crime had nothing to do with Jewishness. But the Nazis used the theory of "collective guilt" to try to round up and execute ALL Jews for the "criminality" of which only a few were actual examples. Naturally, they did not apply the same theory to Gentiles!
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreThey did not use criminality to justify their policy, it simply was not a justification in their propaganda. It doesn't appear anywhere as there was no fear of Jewish gangs. Their propaganda image of Jews is of a scheming sexless physical weakling, not a street thug. I've haven't seen a reference to what we normally call criminality in the propaganda, although I only read a little of der-Sturmer, so if you know examples, please tell me.
Jews in 20th century Germany were assimilated, they didn't live in isolated Ghettos, they spoke German fluently, they worked in the professions, and they were completely integrated in day-to-day life and were not on the whole extraordinarily socioeconomically disadvantaged, although they were underrepresented in the high German bourgoisie. This assimilation and normality is why the genocide came as such a brutal shock, because it was a demonstration for many that assimilation of Jews in Europe is simply impossible, and even if theoretically possible, too risky to continue.
The propaganda made Jews out to be vermin, and the "crimes" were not street crimes, like mugging, but crimes against Germany. There were other crimes too, like absurd slurs about Jewish incestuous behavior, ideas of corrupt morals (meaning having sex with Germans), and ideas of spreading degenerate art (meaning Picasso and Jazzz). Perhaps regarding the Picasso and Jazz business, some Jews have to plead "guity", and I'm sure that some people had sex every once in a while outside of ethnic boundaries. But the decadent morality assertions, the incest, the cheating, was simply an old anti-semitic trope used to prop up the new anti-semitism.
The main crime here was God, imposing a religion of weakness on the strong. There was also the imagined crimes: the "stab in the back" of 1918 causing Germany to lose the war (a similar stab-in-the-back motif appears in American films regarding the Vietnam war, except this time blaming Hippies, not Jews) of inspiring Britain to declare war on Germany, and the other imagined crime of having set up the Soviet Union (although here, there were disproportionately many Jews in the politburo in 1917, this was all over by 1930, as Stalin purged all of them, and in Soviet Communism in the early era, being Jewish or Chinese, or whatever, didn't make any difference. It still usually doesn't, although it did under Stalin).
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "They did not use criminality to justify their policy, it simply was not a justification in their propaganda. It doesn't appear anywhere.... I've haven't seen a reference to what we normally call criminality in the propaganda, although I only read a little of der-Sturmer, so if you know examples, please tell me."
Try the Wiki bio of the one Nazi actually executed for publishing that paper, Julius Streicher:
"He claimed that Jews were white-slavers and were responsible for over 90 percent of the prostitutes in the country. Real unsolved killings in Germany, especially of children or women, were often confidently explained in the pages of Der Stürmer as cases of 'Jewish ritual murder.' One of Streicher's constant themes was the sexual violation of ethnically German women by Jews.... His portrayal of Jews as subhuman and evil is widely considered to have played a critical role in the dehumanization and marginalization of the Jewish minority in the eyes of common Germans – creating the necessary conditions for the later perpetration of the Holocaust."
No reference to criminality in Der Stürmer, you say?
As the judgment against him said, in part: "Streicher's incitement to murder and extermination... clearly constitutes persecution on political and racial grounds in connection with war crimes... and constitutes a crime against humanity."
Look at that. False accusations of hateful things became an "incitement to murder".
And yet you were saying, in Weev's case, that it just wasn't so.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreI read EXACTLY THAT STUFF in der-Sturmer. Oh I see. I said "They didn't use criminality in their propaganda", I meant by that "They didn't use criminality in their sincere propaganda, the stuff I said--- stab in the back, Jewish weakening of German morals with weakness, Nietzsche, that's what they used to get sincere people to join the project.
That stuff in Sturmer is not what you normally call criminality. It's fantasy crime, and the association with Jews was fantasy writing. The propaganda was real, but it was just like "The Weekly World News", it wasn't about real-world events. There were no jewish ritual murders, there were no jewish white slavers (nowadays it's called "human trafficking"), it was all fantasy for the readers, like the Weekly World News in the US, which served a similar role at attacking the public's brains, minus the genocide.
Your quote "But the Nazis used the theory of "collective guilt" to try to round up and execute ALL Jews for the "criminality" of which only a few were actual examples".
This is a problematic quote. That's not what was going on at all. They did not round up and execute Jews for criminality in any way shape or form, this is for sure incorrect, I know, because I know how propaganda is made. That stuff was nonsense which slowly, slowly, gets the public at large on board with the genocide, and it had zero influence on Nazi policy, which wasn't decided by polling the public, but from the top down.
The Nazis were NOT sincerely blaming the Jews for any actual crimes, Sturmer wrote over-the-top stuff like this "Jews EAT JonBenet Ramsey, use blood for Matzos", to get the public to hate the Jews through this reasoning: "Well, they didn't eat JonBenet Ramsey, but they sure are wicked anyway, and I'm sure they had SOMETHING to do with the dissapearance", etc. This is the propagandist method, it has nothing to do with any actual Jewish criminals, none of which I ever saw in derSturmer. It simply wasn't about ordinary crime, like a crime novel is about crime.
I think Streicher should not have been executed, he should have been imprisoned instead of the rank and file SS (and the rank and file SS executed). He was the Rush Limbaugh to the Nazi's Dick Cheney, he had no influence, and he had nothing to do with policy. He was also a boor, and the Nazis had nothing to do with him, he wasn't a high-class guy like they were. He was just a guy they hired to slowly chip away at the public's opinion of Jews and communists, by creating such extreme hatred, that more mild but still extreme hatred became the compromise position, and the norm. Because people usually make their opinion by weighted average of everything they hear, and it requires serious counterpropaganda to undue this natural tendency.
That counterpropaganda is what I am doing here. I am simply removing all the Streicher-isms by adding Streicher-isms going in the other direction to neutralize them.
The only way Streicher style hatred becomes a social disease is if it only comes from one direction without neutralizing counter-propganda. In the 1940s, the communist partisans produced high quality counter-propaganda against the Germans, and unlike the Germans, they didn't focus on imaginary sensationalist crimes, but on very real ones.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Oh I see. I sai[d] 'They didn't use criminality in their propaganda', I meant by that 'They didn't use criminality in their sincere propaganda....'"
When you said "their propaganda" you brought up as an [excellent] example Der Stürmer. Why on earth would you now claim you meant "sincere propaganda"?
"The propaganda was real, but it was just like 'The Daily News', it wasn't about real-world events. ... it was all fantasy for the readers...."
Breaking news, Ron: propaganda can be made up of truths, shaded truths (misleading implications, important details left out), skillfully blended half-truths, and/or completely, shamefully, blatant lies. Nazi propaganda about Jews, for a notable example, tended to the latter three -- and still does, e.g. Holocaust denial, "ZOG". Are you only now just hearing about this?
"He was the Rush Limbaugh to the Nazi's Dick Cheney, he had no influence, and he had nothing to do with policy."
You're underestimating Rushbo's influence. But Streicher's propaganda -- and most other propaganda anywhere, anytime -- wasn't aimed "up" to influence his own party's policy or upper ranks; it was aimed "down" at the common folk, to get them in sympathy with the party goals, in this case to hate Jews, so that killing Jews would seem right and proper.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou don't have to explain propaganda, I know what it looks like. The disagreement I had here was with the idea that controlling crime was a motivation for the genocide. It simply wasn't. The motivation for the genocide was the "Stab in the back", the idea of "Jews control US and British media", "They hate Germans", and, most importantly, the new idea that "Jews must be removed so that the German can be strong again without the polluting influence of monotheism". That's the motivations for genocide, and of these, all but the last are too weak to explain how it turned into genocide.
Rush Limbaugh has no influence going up, only going down, he is just like Streicher. That's why I don't agree with Streicher's execution, it would be like executing Limbaugh for the crimes of the Bush administration. It's simply a highly visible wrong target, he's just a propagandist. I agree with everything else you said.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Rush Limbaugh has no influence going up, only going down...."
The difference being, "up" in this case includes a lot of elected officials, state and federal, for whom an endorsement or the reverse by Rush would make a huge difference in their polls and election results -- so when he starts talking about them, they care what he says.
Contrarily, Streicher had no upward influence because Hitler's position was unassailable, and he didn't take Streicher's advice on appointing, removing, promoting, or demoting anyone else in the Party -- so *they* didn't have to care what he said, either. Streicher wisely stuck to targeting the Party's enemies, so the general population agreed with the Party on the need for their removal.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreWe have no disagreements here, and I didn't think about this business regarding Limbaugh's electoral effect. Thanks.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "The disagreement I had here was with the idea that controlling crime was a motivation for the genocide."
At no point did I ever suggest that "controlling crime" was the Nazis' actual motivation for hating or killing Jews. I said that was the justification their propaganda gave them, an entirely different matter.
The purpose of their propaganda was to help "motivate" the general public of Germany to agree with them and support their actions.
Streicher's success in doing exactly that is what got him executed. Enough of the general public happily assisted in the massive process of killing Jews, due to Streicher's 25 years of anti-Jewish propaganda, that the judges ruled he bore significant responsibility for the scale of the Holocaust.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon, I think the idea was that the original Sephardim were themselves Jewish emigrants from the Holy Land, starting even before the Romans compelled the Diaspora; while the Khazars were (as the story tells) non-Jews who converted, much much later -- thus being the newcomers to the family, even though "equally Jewish".
Although, really, intermarriages and further conversions confuse any "purity of descent" arguments, I should think.
And yes, the fact that Yiddish has German vocabulary -- but Slavic syntax -- strongly suggests that its speakers had previously learned a Slavic language and then pasted German words on top of it to communicate with the new neighbors.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreI agree, except the conversion of the Khazars is not just a story made up by Yehuda HaLevi, it is confirmed by all historical sources and the Jewish empire between the Christians and the Muslims is important in midieval politics.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "... except the conversion of the Khazars is not just a story made up by Yehuda HaLevi...."
Oh, I know. Oddly enough, I was first told the story by another HaLevi, a former Israeli border guard who had returned to his childhood home in the US (and occasionally helped bodyguard visitors like Menachem Begin). Shlomo, his name was; alav ha-shalom.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "The people who harrass online simply do not have any real-world power. This is a fact. They have no power online either, in the case where they are factually wrong."
Yet you have attributed all sorts of power, abuse, malice, and lynch-mob mentality -- including influence upon locking weev up in federal prison -- to people merely commenting on this thread, not even harassing weev online in the slightest.
This is just one of the ways you blow hot and cold, as your cause requires. Truth for you is protean and polymorphous.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreUnlike your other facile attempts to find contradiction, this one is legitimate. But it's not because truth is "protean" and "polymorphous", it's because I didn't know anything when I started.
What I did know is that the folks commenting here are supporting a (wrong) majority view, which is that politeness is good. Weev is supporting a (correct) minority view that politeness is bad. I expect a reasoned debate over this, with actual ideas exchanged.
But online, when there is a majority view, there is a numbers imbalance, and people like to chip in with their nonsense supporting the majority view. So you will get a whole avalanche of comments supporting it from people who don't have any independent opinion, who don't have any actual argument, and who wouldn't know what an actual argument looks like even if it bit them on the leg.
The way to deal with this is to attack them personally, until they start to come back with more substantial material which actually does have some meat in it. The "abuse", "malice", "lynch mob mentality" etc of my comments were designed to get these people to accept what they are, which is a collective mob with no independent thinking. Now you are coming back with me making a factual mistake, and a real inconsistency. GOOD. Trolling successful, you are now making an effective grown up argument, rather than an emotional laden feel-good reinforcement of majority opinion.
You are also totally right, and it's the first time I've voted up your comments. These discussions in reality, as you say, pose no threat to weev in Lebanon or wherever he is. I was wrong on that point.
But, really, I got it wrong because I didn't know anything about this two days ago, and I thought he was in jail somewhere, or getting prosecuted, due to insufficient familiarity with the story. But IGNORANCE DOES NOT STOP ME, as I am A TROLL doing COUNTERPROPAGANDA. It's the other side's job to find out when I made a mistake, good job.
I lay off the lynch mob angle now that I know more. This is a legitimate discussion with no threat to anyone.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "I lay off the lynch mob angle now that I know more."
So nice and polite of you.
Meanwhile Spacecatlady has just left her home because of death threats including her home address: Twitter page... HuffPost report....
Well? Nobody even got slapped on the wrist for it in the Sierra case, so why not...?
I think Weev's fierce defenders bear a moral burden for encouraging this to continue.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreI have NEVER been NICE OR POLITE in ALL MY LIFE! YOU are the POLITE one. The word you are looking for is HONEST. Polite == dishonest.
There is no Sierra case, she is a gasbag doing propaganda. Weev did not do what you are pointing to. This is a direct twitter criminal death threat, it is much more disturbing, as it is an actual death threat (unlike the nonsense our author recieved), and twitter has no literacy requirement. But even still, even this kind of criminal death threat is not as dangerous as compared to a real world one recieved over non-anonymous medium.
As a FIERCE WEEV DEFENDER, I suggest that you bear the moral burden, for taking this CRIMINAL NONSENSE and conflating it with THE DIVINE GIFT of TROLLING.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: " I suggest that you bear the moral burden, for taking this CRIMINAL NONSENSE and conflating it with THE DIVINE GIFT of TROLLING."
I have more than once said, where you could read it, that this crosses the line from trolling to cyberstalking at the exact point it goes from in-forum to RW. That's as in home addresses, SSNs, or causing fear for one's actual life -- criminal, as you say.
My complaint about your defense of Weev is that you categorized him entirely as a "troll", which is what conflated everything he did (including cyberstalking) into "trolling" -- instead of calling him a "troll and cyberstalker", then defending only his trolling and condemning his cyberstalking.
You came close by saying doxxing is wrong, but then you kept flipping back to saying Weev should face no penalty no matter whether he did it or not. How "CRIMINAL" is that? You just demoted it to a civil-suit affair.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreYes, he did go "real world", but in a way that is so remote from these other matters in risk and threat that to conflate them is more error than truth. He goes just past the edge, but no further. He doesn't need to go past the edge at all, but everyone walking on the edge makes a misstep or two.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreWeev himself posted her home address and SSN (he told Mattathias Schwartz), along with incentive for others to hate and harass her. Essentially, he 'subcontracted' the dirty work, just as Kenneth Kuban did with his Craigslist ads. Kuban did not escape responsibility by handing off the legwork; neither should Weev.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreHe wasn't subcontracting anything, because there were NO SUBCONTRACTORS except in her imagination. All self-inflated internet newbies think they are important enough to get stalked. They never are, and she wasn't.
But you are sincere, you have a valid point, you are also (probably) a woman and know more about the level of threat this poses. I would be able to cut the difference and say I agree, more or less. Minus the exaggerations. It is likely that the level of threat is greater because of the gender issues, and it is possible that I am blind to it because I am a dude, and because I only care about freedom of speech.
But you said that you don't support restrictions on trolling, so I don't know why I'm arguing. Your current position is not insane anymore.
Jeremy Alexander Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreThe ethics of the internet are going to be decided democratically. You'll have to earn any authority you'd like to wield in that process. Discard your sense of entitlement to authority and start earning.
Ron Maimon Jeremy Alexander • 6 years ago • edited see moreI don't have any authority, and I don't want it and I don't need it. Authority is useless online, people make up their own minds regardless of your authority, by simply reading the debate and deciding. Authority is only useful in media where some people are shut out by decree, and the authority is let in through a social process. When everyone can participate, authority is actually a hindrance, because you can't say certain things, at least not if you want to maintain your position of authority.
The internet ethics are not exactly decided democratically, not if democracy means voting without information. These ethical questions are decided like all other ethical questions, by open debate and long discussions without censorship. I have no more authority than anyone else, I have LESS AUTHORITY, in fact NONE AT ALL, because I am posting insults to others.
Jeremy Alexander Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreI'm not sure why you would assume that commenting here isn't a social process that shuts people out. It requires access, knowledge of the process, and the ability to communicate via text, all of which of which you flaunt flagrantly. Your long-winded posts give away that deep down you think you deserve to be listened to (i.e. you think you hold authority). But you are correct that you don't, which is why no one listened.
Ron Maimon Jeremy Alexander • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt isn't a social process, anyone can do it if they have the time and energy to post original material and follow the discussion, which in this case, I took time to do, because this cause is important to me. My long-winded posts are required because others are either deliberately lying or doing propaganda, and the point of this is to demonstrate that these are useless, as one person doing counter-propaganda without listening can easily counteract fifty or a hundred doing propaganda the other way. So best stop doing propaganda unless you are right.
I deserve to be listened to exactly to the extent to which I am right. There is no authority in an online discussion, I can claim to be the king of Prussia, or a fourteen year old boy in his mom's basement, who cares? Only the text matters. The only reason I am motivated to post long material is because I am right here, so I don't have any worries about acceptance. That comes slowly at best, when you are right, as people slowly think about things themselves. As for "no one listened", that's just more propaganda, as I can see that due to my verbal diarrhea there is no more consensus here, some people got tired of arguing and left, and I got some hate-messages down below. Hate-messages don't come sans impact.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "My long-winded posts are required because others are either deliberately lying..."
Translation: citing facts of which you hadn't been aware because you hadn't looked.
"... or doing propaganda...."
Translation: citing facts of which you hadn't been aware because you hadn't looked.
"... and the point of this is to demonstrate that these are useless, as one person doing counter-propaganda without listening...."
Translation: yammering his head off without once checking the facts.
"... can easily counteract fifty or a hundred doing propaganda the other way."
Translation: can easily dump more text onto a page than people who check facts first.
"... I deserve to be listened to exactly to the extent to which I am right."
And it was a memorable moment when Ron realized he'd spent a week lambasting the commenters here for putting poor Weev! at risk! of going back! into federal prison!!!!! -- when in fact Weev was not at any such risk, but safely in Lebanon studying Arabic.
But Ron has a healthy ego, and has gone back to assuming his rightness.
Could he be a Right Man, in A.E. van Vogt's and Colin Wilson's sense?
("Why is it that some men believe that anyone who contradicts them is either dishonest or downright wicked?") -- cf. Ron's initial line above.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreAll right, now your comments are spot on! There is no need for me or anyone else to do fact-checking before blabbing away, as in such a discussion, you will get quickly corrected by others. I also make an effort to correct the mistakes where I am wrong, which wasn't in too many places (you were more wrong more consistently, and you never corrected anything, because you are not trained in intellectual honesty). I think I did an excellent job with the facts, considering I didn't even read the article, just sorta skimmed it quickly.
The main message is the same now as at the start--- this is an unjustified hit piece on a non-threatening nobody for the purpose of silencing internet discourse, and it should not be accepted at face value. There's nothing wrong with me saying stupid things along the way, based on false assumptions, so long as a correction doesn't require too long a process. It doesn't. Me saying stupid things neither hurts nor helps my credibility, because, and this is what you don't get, ONLINE THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS CREDIBILITY, only the text matters, and people verifying various statements for themselves using the nebula of online resources all around us. A person who makes three correct statements and one outrageous WHOPPER doesn't lose credibility, the three correct statements are verified, and the whopper is corrected, and nobody has any more or any less credibility at the end than at the beginning, no matter who said what. But the truth becomes clear to everyone along the way.
Nobody here is wicked, but dishonesty is the natural condition of humanity. The internet fixes that by design, and those who have already learned how to be honest, which is, like, physicists, and pretty much nobody else, don't have to change anything.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "There is no need for me or anyone else to do fact-checking before blabbing away, as in such a discussion, you will get quickly corrected by others."
The problem being that others (who had done fact-checking) tried quickly correcting you, and you refused to believe them, preferring to insist on your initial blind assumptions, so you kept blabbing away uncorrected for a bit over a week.
"... only the text matters, and people verifying various statements for themselves using the nebula of online resources all around us."
Translation: fact-checking for themselves. You just contradicted yourself.
"I also make an effort to correct the mistakes where I am wrong...."
At one time you agreed that Weev's doxxing was utterly unethical -- and here you call the article describing the effects of that doxxing (with the false accusations to draw threats at home) "an unjustified hit piece on a non-threatening nobody for the purpose of silencing internet discourse"... so are you "correcting" your earlier appraisal of the doxxing as "unethical"? You had retracted the idea that this article and comment-thread threatened to put Weev in prison (because he's in Lebanon) -- but have you gone back to that idea?
"There's nothing wrong with me saying stupid things along the way, based on false assumptions, so long as a correction doesn't require too long a process."
Eight days, Ron. Eight days of your saying stupid things based on false assumptions, and ignoring all corrections and pleas to just read the facts plainly printed in the darned article. Eight days was too long.
"A person who makes three correct statements and one outrageous WHOPPER doesn't lose credibility...."
Unfortunately, Ron, you stuck with repeating and repeating and repeating that one outrageous WHOPPER at abusive length for over a week (or should that count as a separate WHOPPER for each repetition?), wrapping up with perhaps three brief quiet oops-never-mind statements at the end -- and yes, by then your credibility was well into the negative if not imaginary numbers. Besides, here you are resuming your original position again, the Ron returneth to his WHOPPERS, so you lose whatever points the corrections/admissions might have bought you.
"... those who have already learned how to be honest, which is, like, physicists, and pretty much nobody else, don't have to change anything."
Perhaps the set of physicists not including you, Ron, unless your honesty radically differs when discussing physics than when discussing topics such as this.
If we were in the same room and you told me it was raining outside, I would look out the window before reaching for my umbrella.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreThere is no contradiction, little intellectually dishonest twit. The only problem with what I said was that weev is not subject to prosecution, something I didn't get at first because of all the stupid propagandists here falsely saying "He's in jail now". It isn't relevant anymore, he's NOT in jail now, he's been hounded out of the country.
The principle is the same, he is a socially powerless nobody who is being attacked by a wealthy person who has lots of power and no achievements. These malcontents are extremely jealous of people with no power and real achievement, because they think "it's not fair! I worked hard for all this power, why can't I do anything significant?", the world's smallest violin providing a soundtrack for their sorrow. Nobody corrected it, by the way, because it's so peripheral to the discussion.
His doxxing was unethical, like picking up a wallet and not returning it, like giving away street drugs, like lying on an official form. It's not a threat of rape or murder, it's only psychologically unsettling, it's a hassle, and it's not even clear it should be made illegal, because you can't use the power of the state to correct all unethical things, because the state itself is often worse.
It isn't possible to discuss with a person who is not intellectually honest, one can only call them an idiot to their face until they change. You aren't capable of change.
As a famous Dirac anecdote goes, someone sat across from Dirac at lunch, and said "Nice day today." They finished eating in silence. Dirac went to the door, looked outside, came back and sat down, and said "yes. It is." The moral of the story: you should ALWAYS look out the window when someone tells you it is raining.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "... something I didn't get at first because of all the stupid propagandists here falsely saying 'He's in jail now'."
Something you would have gotten had you (as I kept urging you) read the article -- which explicitly said he'd been released, and even received multiple awards, so that now he's become a "socially celebrated somebody", something you still haven't realized.
Yet you conclude with the "famous Dirac anecdote" whose moral is "you should ALWAYS look out the window when someone tells you it is raining."
Well, if you already knew that, then who was more stupid? The "stupid propagandists here falsely saying 'He's in jail now'," or you for not looking up the facts (as repeatedly urged) before believing them?
And after all that -- after you spent eight days spouting falsehoods because you believed stupid propaganda, and couldn't be bothered to check the facts, and would not believe the people in this thread who tried to correct your errors and who urged you to read the article (which correctly said Weev was no longer in prison) -- after all that, you hurl the accusation of "intellectually dishonest" at one of the people who tried to correct you, not one of the "propagandists" you believed. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. 10 out of 10, Ron. A spotless score.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreHere's a question for you, Ron: if you suspected that Kathy Sierra's article was factually false -- and that WIRED, for whatever reason, had chosen to publish it without making any factual corrections to the text, or as footnotes, or in a sidebar, or in an accompanying article, to keep its readers from succumbing to falsehoods -- why didn't you research some other, independent, reliable news sources to discover exactly what the truth of the case really was?
They might all have agreed with you, they might all have agreed with Sierra, or something in-between, but at least you'd have gotten "a look out the window".
Yet you never once looked. Instead you stuck with your initial blind assumptions (based at least in part on what you now admit was "stupid propaganda"), in the utter certainty they were right -- dismissing out of hand any and every contention to the contrary.
Why?
Jeremy Alexander Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou have a very narrow and impractical definition of authority. All human interactions are social processes. 'Right' is determined exclusively through such processes. Authority is a prerequisite to being right. You cannot be right if others do not allow you to be.
And again, online forums might be relatively more inclusive than other media. They still exclude billions.
Raven Jeremy Alexander • 6 years ago see moreJeremy Alexander: "Authority is a prerequisite to being right. You cannot be right if others do not allow you to be."
Query: was Galileo therefore not right at the time he muttered "Eppur si muove"?
Jeremy Alexander Raven • 6 years ago see moreI was maybe a little too flippant there. Someone can be right without authority, but that rightness is irrelevant and unknowable to all others. No one listens to someone just because he's right, like our friend posited he deserved. It takes authority too (Galileo being a prime example of what happens without it).
Raven Jeremy Alexander • 6 years ago see moreIn Galileo's case, his opposition had *tremendous* authority, life-and-death authority, burn-Giordano-Bruno-at-the-stake authority, enough to shut Galileo up in more than one sense. So it wasn't merely Galileo's *lack* of authority that silenced him; he could have been a city Mayor with the concomitant authority, and the Church would still have trumped him.
But take another authority-less figure, a recent immigrant with a name that meant suffering. He had bright ideas, and wrote pamphlets to express them. People bought the pamphlets, and they got reprinted, and then more people bought the reprints. It's quite likely that Tom Paine's Common Sense gave the idea of Independence (the American Revolution) the public support it needed to actually happen.
(He probably couldn't have done that while still living in England. The higher authority there would have disapproved.)
Jeremy Alexander Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreOn Galileo, true but I don't think that really changes my point. Relative to the church he had no authority. Relative is what counts.
On Paine, viral media is a special case. It propagates using the authority of the individuals transferring it, not of its creator. Or maybe mass media is the special case, hmm...
Raven Jeremy Alexander • 6 years ago • edited see moreCommon Sense, a 79-page pamphlet, was published anonymously, its first publisher charging two shillings a copy. Paine thought that was too much, and had its second publisher charge only one shilling a copy. Authority? The buyer chose whether to pick it up off a stack of copies and hand a shilling (or two) to the merchant selling it.
Relative authority? What was Paine's, compared to Parliament's or the King's? Surely nothing.
Jeremy Alexander Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreWould you prefer 'influence' over 'authority'? Like I said, Paine's influence was irrelevant. It was effectively nothing, yes. The pamphlets sold because they went viral. Individuals that first bought them did so because they were open to the medium (it had influence over them). They then encouraged others to buy the pamphlets (using their influence over those others). The second round of buyers did the same to others, and so on, with all the attendant network effects.
Raven Jeremy Alexander • 6 years ago see moreSo Paine's influence/authority, or lack thereof, was irrelevant. Okay, settled. He didn't need to have "authority" in order to get his ideas widely accepted as "right".
As to the idea that somehow the pamphlets were imbued with this quality of influence/authority (oooo, it just radiated from the paper, drawing them nearer and nearer, they could not resist, they were under its spell!)... no, I prefer your other formulation: they were open to the medium, as perhaps the redcoats marching past them in the street were not. The 'quality' was in the reader, the human being present in the interaction, at least at first, for Paine's prose to even have a chance.
Try distributing those same pamphlets in the contemporary Parliament, or George III's court, and I think their influence/authority would not have been so hypnotic.
Jeremy Alexander Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreIf you think inanimate objects can't have influence, you need to read up on your behavioral economics. It's just like how you've given forums influence over you and are therefore willing to engage, unlike others who drop by, comment, and leave.
The initial pamphlet audience likely had happened to purchase one by chance (or marketing) in the past, liked what they read, and subsequently chose to give the medium influence over them in the future. Environmental effects caused them to be open to a single pamphlet, then that pamphlet caused them to be open to the medium (to give it influence over them).
Raven Jeremy Alexander • 6 years ago see moreJeremy, I think that's a use of shorthand which somehow has been reified in its users' minds -- as if I were to tell you "the candle flame went out" and you were to go out the door yourself looking for it.
The same inanimate object might have no influence at all on people standing next to me and looking at the screen? Then the difference, the 'quality' we're looking for, is not in the object, but in me. As you said before, in the person's being open. The choice rests there.
Jeremy Alexander Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreNo argument from me there. The person gives the object influence over herself. The object does have influence, but only to the extent that the person has given it. Where it gets interesting is when influence is given subconsciously.
Ron Maimon Jeremy Alexander • 6 years ago • edited see moreWith that way of thinking, "right" and "authority" become synonyms, and truth is simply a social process of consensus. This is the Heideggerrian view, and it is simply false, and even a small amount of experience with the hard sciences shows you this. The Copernicans were right long before they were accepted or even gaining converts rather than losing them. Archimedes was right 1800 years before he was completely understood. Cavalieri was right even though he was heckled and marginalized. The process is exposed in a very clear way in mathematics, and in science, because the people who are right are, by statistics, nearly always very different from the people who are powerful, and this is why studying physics, engineering, computer science, etc, is important for clarifying social processes.
In the case of social questions, there is a view that these more difficult to analyze things do not have an objective truth to them, they way chemistry does. The notion of religious teleology (or teleology of truth) gives a definition of "right" here also: right is that which people eventually come to agree on. Eventually leaves a long time for discussion and debate, and the mechanism is a long consensus-forming process which examines all the various arguments one by one. This process produces authority at the end, but does not require authority to operate. It only requires intellectual honesty. This is different from the Heideggerrian definition because the structure of the discussion process itself is important, the structure of the debate informs you whether you can trust the consensus that is produced from it. Pontification from authority doesn't help sway things one way or another, at least given a long enough time. Open discussion is foolproof, because no point of view can be shut out, except those points of view that nobody thought of yet, but these are quickly produced when people sit and think for a little bit.
The example of science is useful, because here you can verify the truth of the propositions for yourself, completely independently of the social process, and then check how long it takes for the parallel social process to work itself out, in this case where there is a nearly purely individual method of evaluating true and false. You learn that it does work itself out, but it takes forever, and the length of time is contingent on all sorts of events in history, like which nation won a war. But in the end, the person who got it right, in the sense of correct mathematics and science, always is eventually authoritative. And for the handful of examples where this fails, the person usually gets some small thing wrong that blocks the acceptance, like Geoffrey Chew, or else the idea is just on the way up, like Hugh Everett III. In either case, the internet makes the process go by an order of magnitude faster than before.
The mechanism of social progress requires freedom of participation, tolerance of wrong ideas, examination of all related ideas without bias, and relentless intellectual honesty, so that you point out your own mistakes FIRST, before other people do, and you don't feel bad when you get something wrong, rather, you learn something. These are the principles of physics discourse, and they are very alien to social politics, where you are supposed to simply twist and bend every statement and fact to your maximum political advantage. The zeroeth approximation to physics discourse is to bend and twist every statement and fact to your maximums DIS-advantage. This is what people are free to do on online forums without repercussion, because you can do so anonymously and remotely. It produces physicist-level of clarity, but too few people do this right now.
Online forums don't exclude billions exactly, although if you are talking about rural electrification in the Sudan, you might be missing some voices, although you would be surprised at how resourceful 10,000 people are at finding at least one linked in representative. The real exclusion is of the second fellow with the same idea, as repetition is a waste of time, so the first person who has something to say sort of owns it, and needs to defend it, because everyone else with the same point of view doesn't want to duplicate the effort.
It's not like I'm claiming any great originality for these observations, I am pretty certain that this discussion will never appear on my resume. This is just mundane observations about the authority-free structure of internet discussions which were already clear to all involved in the 1990s, but seem to have been forgotten by some people today.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "In the case of social questions, there is a view that these more difficult to analyze things do not have an objective truth to them...."
Post-Modernism ("Po-Mo"), though its adherents have an unpleasant habit of applying that view to all (not only 'social') questions, viz. "Science is merely one more opinion."*
* Last item on the table in The Emperor’s Postmodern Clothes: A Brief Guide to Deconstructing Academically Fashionable Phrases for the Uninitiated (PDF), by David A. Levy.
Oddly enough, it's generally the Po-Mos who think the power of forceful-enough assertion can settle all issues, with no need to question one's own blind assumptions or go check any "objective facts" (because there are no "objective facts") -- and that has been your entire approach to the Kathy-Sierra-vs-Weev factual-truth issue from the day you appeared in this thread: memorably, "I am uninterested in learning the facts.... I already guessed the facts..., I guessed right, there is nothing more to learn."
(Among those "facts" being that Weev was still in prison, etc., which now you blame on "stupid propagandists" rather than on guessing wrong. Whatever you chanced to guess right is to your credit, whatever you got wrong is other people's fault, eh? Really neat deal.)
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreNot exactly me, that's the Heideggerians. Heidegger==po-mo. I'm not exactly with them. But I agree with you on all that.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "Not exactly me, that's the Heideggerians. Heidegger==po-mo. I'm not exactly with them."
"Not exactly"? Maybe just a jump to the left? Or a step to the ri-i-i-i-ight? But close.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see more"Not exactly" is irony-talk for "COMPLETELY 180 DEGREES REVERSED", I guess I have to clarify for the irony impaired.
Heidegger is a moral stain and a vacuous idiot, Neitzsche is a terrible crackpot, and I have no patience for academic philosophy, as aside from the short lived logical positivist movement, it is all a terrible intellectual fraud. The continental school has produced nothing of value aside from Marx, who was really an economist and not a philosopher, and all the rest can be condensed into a five page summary which would be hard to fill without redundancy.
The points of agreement you see are superficial:
1. the ability to formulate a new position and maintain it in the face of hostile propaganda.
This is something that the post-modernists encourage. It is also something science encourages. The critical difference being that you go with the new position only as far as it is correct.
2. The willingness to use anti-logical arguments, like ad-hominem and propaganda
This is a superficial point of similiarity. The crucial distinction is that these ARE NOT ARGUMENTS AT ALL. These are simply used to diffuse and counteract the propaganda value of authoritative bullcrap, which usually comes in the form of an equal amount of veiled or explicit ad-hominems and anti-logical argument on the other side.
Any logical argument proceeds in parallel to the ad-homs or anti-logical rhetoric and has no relation to this anti-logical nonsense, little idiot. You can remove all the ad-homs, twit, and the content is unaltered, prickface, and consists of a normal rational discussion of the usual sort, testicle-brain.
3. The dismissal of authority structures.
This is the sole point of agreement with the post-modernists. The difference is that one is beholden to the same standard of truth that has been understood since ancient times, now bereft of social authority, proceeding with as many as desire to join, without any barrier to entry, without any barrier of unduly obfuscated language, and with the text itself, judged by independent analysis, shared and evaluated by textual responses being the only acceptable method of arbitration of acceptance or rejection. No socially mediated authority required. That's not postmodernism exactly. That's internet discussions.
The philosophical underpinning is totally different. There is no rejection of truth here, no rejection of logic, and no rejection of fact or placing discourse above content. It's the exact opposite, it is simply a rejection of traditional authority. And that's not post-modernism. That's Galileo and Pauli.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRaven: "'Not exactly'? Maybe just a jump to the left? Or a step to the ri-i-i-i-ight? But close."
Ron Maimon: "'Not exactly' is irony-talk..., I guess I have to clarify for the irony impaired."
It's the missing thrust that really drives you insaaaane, eh?
So let's do the text-dump-in-sufficient-quantities-to-warp-spacetime. Oh wait. You already have.
"The continental school has produced nothing of value aside from Marx...."
And oddly enough, Po-Mo tends to be associated with Socialist schools of thought. (See Hicks.)
"The willingness to use anti-logical arguments, like ad-hominem and propaganda. This is a superficial point of similiarity."
The more anti-logical (and anti-factual), the stronger the resemblance. And... not too very superficial, at that.
"These are simply used to diffuse and counteract the propaganda value of authoritative bullcrap, which usually comes in the form of an equal amount of veiled or explicit ad-hominems and anti-logical argument on the other side."
Oh, be honest for once. You've used them against people who didn't use them at all.
"The dismissal of authority structures. / This is the sole point of agreement with the post-modernists."
Well, no, as noted above, you agree on other points of theory and methods.
"There is no rejection of truth here, no rejection of logic, and no rejection of fact or placing discourse above content."
But in practice you have done exactly that: substituted your "guesses" for checking the actual objective facts, and thereafter said you were "uninterested in learning the facts" -- so sure were you that you had "guessed right" thus there was "nothing more to learn"... though in fact you had guessed wrong and would later blame that on "stupid propagandists" -- and you steadily rejected all factual or logical correction, insulting everyone who tried to correct you on your errors or urged you to go check them yourself.
And apparently now you are even going to deny that ever happened.
Incredible.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreI DID NOT GUESS WRONG, TURD BRAIN, I GUESSED RIGHT. I DO NOT NEED TO READ FURTHER, I ALREADY READ TOO MUCH ABOUT THIS NONSENSE. ANYONE CAN REVIEW THE DISCUSSION.
I never use ad-hominems against a person who isn't using various anti-logical rhetorical devices. It's just that I MAKE IT OBVIOUS, by calling you a crapstain, while you MAKE IT SUBTLE, by using a high-falutin tone and the dismissive annoying language of authority. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHICH YOU USE, BECAUSE BOTH ARE EQUAL IN PROPAGANDA VALUE. Once there is enough ad-homs and ridiculous rhetoric flying around on all sides, all the anti-logical arguments become completely irrelevant, on both sides. When you force people to pick sides in a conflict, they will either butt out entirely, or they will review the objective evidence.
Hicks is also an idiot (funny enough, I just read his stuff, as he has an attack on post-modernism from a traditionalist liberal point of view). He is writing explicitly anti-socialist texts, which in itself is not a problem, but he makes the following outright OUTRAGEOUS ERRORS:
1. He claims Stalin is responsible for 60 million deaths in the Soviet Union, a country of ~200 million people, and ~120 million in Stalin's time. This figure is the latest upswing from Solzhenietsin, to 1 in 2 Soviet citizens dead under Stalin, the previous figure was 20 million, or 1 in 6 Soviet citizens dead (in addition to the ~12-15 million war casualties). That's really awful, the way the population of the Soviet Union declined by 50% as Stalin murdered every other person, like Hitler did with the Jews. You can see it when you ask typical Russians or Ukranians about their familiy, half their family disappears in the 1930s, just like typical Jewish families in the 1940s.
Of course not! That's obviously ridiculous, and from a survey of former Soviet citizens, or a glance at the population statistics for the era, the rate of death is about 1%-3% at best. Hicks buys this MENTALLY RETARDED bourgeoise propaganda without any critical review. Stalin's "purges" usually involved firing people from various positions of power, only the most powerful or top people were executed, but these are the most visible people. These purges were AWFUL, but the result was on the order of 300,000 deaths, as revealed in the Khruschev era. There were on the order of 2-3 million imprisonments, with a mortality rate in prison of order 10-30%, and you can do the math. These are roughly comparable to the cumulative suffering and death from street homelessness in the US, although I am not condoning either of these horrific endemic structural democides.
The Ukranian famine killed at most on the order of 3-5 million folks, it is hard to tell, because this is a demographic estimate, so it includes babies who were not concieved. The net total of deaths in Stalin's time from state repression is best estimated on the order of 2-3 million people. The loss of life in the 1920s civil war was higher, and the loss of life in the Irish potato famine, a similar disaster due to liberal capitalism, is higher still, and from a much smaller initial population. I am not white-washing Stalin's very real crimes, I am trying to show you what THESE ACTUALLY WERE, instead of doing propaganda for liberalism.
For a relatively honest assessment grounded in actual research, rather than propagandist fantasy, see here: http://www.nybooks.com/arti...
The same estimate inflation works for Mao. Mao's famine killed less than it prevented births, because food was relatively equally distributed outside of certain areas where people misreported needs, as is usual in the stupidity of central planning. The demographic dip in China amounts to ~30-60 million lost people, but these nearly entirely consist of babies never concieved. You can see a similar but smaller dip in the US during the years of the Great Depression. The baby-boom is a reaction to this, people put off having babies until they were economically secure. I am not condoning Mao's crimes either, which were very real. I am telling you what they actually were, rather than doing liberal propaganda.
I am not defending Stalinism of Maoism, I am attacking Stephen Hicks, for uncritically repeating propaganda. This is common now in anti-intellectual circles, and it is always rewarded. Online, it is extremely easy to fix, I just did so. To verify these assertions, you need to look at the actual content of Khruschev's 1956 speech, and the actual demographic estimates for China's terrible times in the 1960s. These were terrible enough as they were, without lying.
2. Hicks claims that the Soviet Union economic output was roughly comparable in 1917 and 1956, that there was no significant economic growth.
This is complete MADE-UP NONSENSE. The Soviet Union industrialized in the first and second five-year plans, from ~1930 to ~1940, literacy rates went to 100% in this period, and the last unemployment office was closed because unemployment had dropped to 0%. The reason unemployment was at 0% (it really was) is because the Stalinist hiring model paid managers by the number of workers they could attract, and had a free labor movement, with prices set by supply and demand. It was secretly a pure free market, and the pressure was to get every worker into a position. This continued through the 1980s, and unemployment was at 0% or as close as one could measure, throughout the period. But the supply/demand wages led to weird phenomenon, like factory laborers making twice as much sometimes as professors or managers, putting pressure on people to fill what are lower-paid positions in the west. This created a huge amount of resentment, because more powerful positions were lower paid, but it is consistent with the predictions of an idealized frictionless liberal free-market model for labor, which is more or less what was instituted in the second Soviet constitution.
The way Hicks shows no growth in the USSR is by comparing farm output in 1917, when nearly the entire population was farming in small plots, to 1956, when the farming was done with a small percentage of the population in collective farms, and the rest worked as industrial workers. This is an insane economic comparison, and dismisses the many-fold industrail growth in the Soviet economy during the 1930s and 1940s. The USSR had double-digit growth rates until the 1960s, which is why Khruschev predicted that it would eclipse the west. The rate of growth was roughly equal to the west in the 1960s, and stagnated in the 1970s and 1980s. The end of communism was marked by a 50% collapse in the GDP of the USSR, as the state industries were privatized, and cooperation agreements with Eastern block countries collapsed. The USSR's economy was approximately 30% to 50% of the US's during the 1950s-1970s, with a similar population. It never caught up, but it wasn't anywhere near 1917, it industrialized and educated the whole population. It also was completely competitive in the hard sciences, and about 4-5 years behind in electronics development. This lag only became intolerable when personal computer technology was developing, because 4-5 years in computers is an eternity.
I am NOT ADVOCATING USSR STYLE SOCIALISM. I am advocating ACADEMIC HONESTY. If Hicks can't even be bothered to get his figures right, rather preferring to repeat figures pulled out of the nether-regions of propagandists, how can he discuss these issues objectively?
This type of dishonesty is used by the media as a marker--- it tells you who you are supposed to pick out the "great philosophers" now. The great philosopher is the one who goes along with the currently accepted propaganda.
Still, I mostly agree with Hicks in his analysis of Nietzsche and post-modernism, but he is not intellectually honest, as is revealed by him swallowing absurd mass death figures for communist atrocities without actually checking the figures for himself, and by completely misunderstanding the structure of the Soviet economy and the growth rates of this economy in its prime.
3. He associates post-modernism with the left, even though it is a creation of the fascist right.
Post-modernism was ping-ponged between right and left, because it is essentially an ATHEISTIC philosophy, denying the notion of truth. It has nothing intrinsically to do with the left. It was due to Nazi Heidegger, and it was mostly embraced by right-leaning German intellectuals.
It was taken over by the left because it gave a framework independent of tradition for discussing religious notions. But there is a much better framework for this which is monotheistic, in superrational decision making. This is actually monotheistic ethics, with a notion of a personal God, and this is what I go by. So I can ignore all post modernism completely.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "To verify these assertions, you need to look at the actual content of Khruschev's 1956 speech...."
PLUNK.
When you thought I might be Kathy Sierra, and I gave you links to my writings, apparently you did not scroll down to the dedication of "The Dream", with a tiny discussion of my mother's Ukrainian family history; there's more in print or scattered online. But with a grandmother shot by the Soviets, I'm not inclined to dismiss the idea as fantasy -- or "verify assertions" upon the word of Nikita Khrushchev (whose name I know how to spell, Хрущёв), of all people.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreI DON'T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT YOUR FAMILY. I have a grandfather brutally enslaved and starved by the Nazis and large chunks of murdered family including people who fled under piles of corpses. What difference does it make? I still verified the assertions of genocide objectively, by READING AND UNDERSTANDING THOSE GODDAMN NAZIS, and TAKING THEIR PHILOSOPHY SERIOUSLY, to see what exactly they were thinking. Individual suffering has nothing to do with academic truth, academic truth is much more important, since academic honesty is the best way to prevent future suffering. Understanding what was going on is the only way to prevent such horrors from recurring. Any lie, even a "noble lie" is a crime against the literature.
The current propaganda claims about the rates of state murder in the Soviet Union are a MADE UP FANTASY, which is good, because it lets you identify dishonest stupid academics like Hicks. The claims that stalin killed 16% of the population is patently absurd, let alone the recent claim that he killed 50% of the population. He can only have been responsible for 3% at most, because you don't see the effect on total population figures. The repression was terrible, but that doesn't mean you get to LIE ABOUT IT. Tell the truth, it was bad enough as it was.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "The current propaganda claims about the rates of state murder in the
Soviet Union[Nazi Reich] are a MADE UP FANTASY...."... and just like that you have the argument of the Holocaust deniers, right down to citations of the official speeches as evidence of fact. Ptui.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreYeah, yeah, nitwit, sometimes the deniers are just objectively right, which is why you need to do a review in all cases.
In the case of the USSR, the mainstream deniers are 100% right, the ones that don't dismiss Stalin's democide as propaganda, but dismiss the recent inflation of those numbers as propaganda. These folks use official figures to compute what was happening, and they are doing good historical work. The other side just pulls numbers out of the ass, and does so to make the average bigger than Hitler. There is no methodology to the 60 million figure, it's just designed so that the average with 2 million, with weighting, will converge to approximately 20 million, so that Stalin will be "worse than Hitler". It's that moronic, and it is deserving of no respect. So ptui on YOU, twit, you are condoning historical LIES which are designed to block honest scholarship and dismiss honest historians into the margin. There is no excuse for that.
The evidence is not only from official speeches, it's from the population figures, from a random sampling of individuals that were arrested and either executed or served their time (I know many physicists who went through this in the Stalin era), and asking people from the Soviet Union which of their relatives died.
NONE OF THESE are compatible with 20 million death toll, NOT ONE. They all point to a 2-3 million death toll, consistent with the population statistics, and compilation of executions. The compilation of execution figures has been done using post-Soviet figures from previously classified archives, and I trust the careful historian's modern figures of ~700,000 executions in Stalin's era (I didn't know these were available), with perhaps a comparable number in the later Stalin years, but no more.
The demographic figures for the Ukranian famine are much harder to come by, and here you need to sample Ukranian families to know. You simply cannot trust anyone on this, because THEY ALL LIE THROUGH THEIR TEETH, without conspiracy, simply by repeating Solzhenitsin, because this is how you get attention and money.
But given the acceptance of the famine in Khruschev times, we can know that there was a serious, serious death toll here, and I trust the demographic estimates of 5-7 million lost Ukranians in the 1930s, although this involves lost births as well, so the best estimate of the true death toll is on the order of 2-4 million. I don't know what it was exactly, because I can't trust the writing of anyone on this, because it is corrupted by propaganda, and influenced by the desire to produce as big a number as possible.
You are an irresponsible FRAUD, and I do not accept your political showmanship as acceptable discourse. Any ad-hominems pale in comparison to this kind of dishonesty. Be ashamed, dude, be ashamed.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "The evidence is not only from official speeches, it's from the population figures...."
Produced under the same officials.
"... from a random sampling of individuals that were arrested and either executed or served their time (I know many physicists who went through this in the Stalin era)...."
Presumably just the ones who served their time.
Or do you have a working Ouija board?
"... and asking people from the Soviet Union which of their relatives died."
Ron, oh Ron, what a wonderful statistics methodology you worked up there. You asked this in the 2000s, only among emigrés in the US? Concerning mass deaths in the 1930s that often took entire families leaving no surviving members? (In first, a Soviet Union that limited emigration, and later a post-Soviet economy that often limited the financial ability to emigrate -- especially early on, still soon after Chernobyl, when so many people were trying to relocate.) How representative a sample do you think you got?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou stupid twit, the population census figures for the Soviet Union were ALWAYS HONEST AND RELIABLE, unlike your INSIPID INSINUATIONS, these figures were used for everything from labor apportionment. industrial relocations, planning for industrial cities, they were central to the process of planning, and these people took their planning seriously. You are now disputing the SOVIET CENSUS? What data don't you dispute? You retarded ape. Give it up. You're just blowing rhetoric. It doesn't work online.
There were those who were killed and those who were released. YOU CAN ASK ANYONE IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION. The answer is always the same. Everyone was scared, there were two relative who got in trouble with the authorities, one who was arrested and released, sometimes one executed. That's typical, and it's consistent with the numbers I give. The emigrees are OVERREPRESENTATIVE of the repressed people, as they consist of bourgeoisie. The mass of people just went about working trying to make the best living they could under the system, without making waves, and that 99% was left entirely alone. The problem is that among the HIGHER UPS, the only "people that count" in the views of Western media, the persecution rate and execution rate came up to 16%, and among the top of the top, the revolutionaries of 1917, the rate of execution was 50% or higher. It is all consistent with what I told you, because what I told you is the GODDAMN TRUTH, and truth doesn't change.
There were no mass executions of entire families, the persecution in the Soviet Union was ALWAYS individual, with good party members in the same family as persecuted dissidents. The only family that got killed were the Romanofs. Famines don't work the way you are claiming, they don't claim families, they claim individuals who succumb to weakness and disease, and young children, who are neglected due to weakness. You are simply a LYING FRAUD, and I don't have patience for anything you say anymore. Go live in your own universe, leave the rest of the world alone.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "What data don't you dispute?"
Ron, this site impartially discusses stats from multiple viewpoints, noting who estimates high or low. Your lowball estimates come from left-wing apologists for the Soviet Union, not from neutral historians, so I decline to take them seriously. Your "ALWAYS HONEST AND RELIABLE" figures come from the same Soviet Union that kept rejiggering its Five-Year-Plan stats, that lied about Chernobyl for one tiny example of its many deceptions. Would it have lied about genocide within its borders? Oh no, never that.
"There were no mass executions of entire families, the persecution in the Soviet Union was ALWAYS individual...."
I was referring to what happens when families are left with no food because everything was taken away, but in fact Stalin had specifically ordered the elimination of kulaks as a class. "Dekulakization: ... the Soviet campaign of political repressions, including arrests, deportations, and executions of millions of the better-off peasants and their families in 1929–1932. ... led to mass starvation in many parts of the Soviet Union and the death of at least 14.5 million peasants in 1930–1937, including five million who died in Ukraine during the Holodomor."
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYes, yes, you LYING MONKEY. The way it works is this--- five good historians, usually left-leaning, study the details of the Soviet Union, and give you accurate "low-ball" estimates. Then come a bunch of bourgoise writers and "historians" who create numbers out of thin air, to advance their own power. Then you publish a "list" of all the opinions together, and I AM SUPPOSED TO TAKE ALL THE ESTIMATES SERIOUSLY?? GO SUCK YOUR BALLS. I KNOW HOW TO ESTIMATE INDEPENDENTLY OF ANY OF THESE JERKS, AND I CAN TELL WHO IS RIGHT.
YOU MUST NEVER MAKE AN AVERAGE OF THE TRUTH AND PROPAGANDA, BECAUSE PROPAGANDISTS EXPECT YOU TO DO THIS, AND ADJUST THEIR PROPAGANDA ACCORDINGLY. You don't take estimates seriously when they conflict with carefully compiled population statistics, done region by region, over many decades, and over several changes of governments, which are consistent with each other and which are consistent with observations and external CIA estimates. The Soviets didn't lie too much in their five year plans either--- the statistics for production quotas were manipulated to look good in ways OTHER THAN lying about quantity of production. The "lies" about Chernobyl are simply slow announcement, due to official embarrassment, it took a day or two too long. The response was entirely appropriate once the government was active, the Soviet Union in 1985 had an entirely responsible relatively open government for the first time, certainly more responsible and open than the nightmares that people have now in that region.
You simply have no idea what internal gosplan documents looked like, you never read them. You never looked at the discussions of party officials, and compiled statistics, and planning figures, and I have (they are boring but extremely informative). There can simply be no fudging when you are planning an entire economy, as you have people accepting deliveries on each quantitiy you produce, document and send off. The fudging comes in the ignoring of needs you didn't anticipate, and in overproducing certain goods that you know about at the expense of others you are ignorant of.
You ALSO have no idea what a death rate of 20 million looks like in a country of 160 million. It's a CATASTROPHE you cannot miss. It's deaths all over, it's numbers appropriate to the black plague. You would see mass deaths in nearly every family, it is a HUMONGOUS rate of death, it would be impossible to miss, and you would be able to see it by a small random sample of Soviet citizens. IT SIMPLY IS NOT THERE. IT IS EMBARASSING, OBVIOUS, POLITICAL, LYING. An easy question you can ask: "did more relatives of yours die as combatants in WWII or from political repression under Stalin?" You can easily find the answer to this without any experts to help, and the WWII deaths are compiled independenly, we know exactly what these were.
Another source of economic error came in the black market and small farming, stolen goods, etc, and this hidden economic activity was biggest in the 1970s and early 1980s. It goes above ground in 1985 with Perestroika, and in the last years it is regulated business activity, and it is estimated properly. THERE WAS NEVER POPULATION FUDGING, as nobody cared to hide anything, nor could they even if they wanted to, as the figures were compiled in many offices region by region.
You MUST NEVER MAKE AN AVERAGE OF THE HONEST AND MENTALLY RETARDED. The left wingers here are 100% honest and 100% right, there is no compromise with retarded right wingers, as they MAKE CRAP UP AND THEN LIE ABOUT IT. The fact that you insist on a compromise shows that your brain is compromised.
The "dekulakization" was the process of confiscating property, it removed a social class of peasants. It didn't proceed by killing all the kulaks and their relatives, but by removing their property, and arresting or killing those who resisted. These are included in the judicial and extra-judicial executions compiled by honest historians. It was socially unsettling, and led to the loss of property by millions of people, but not to their deaths, as you can see BY SIMPLY ASKING PEOPLE WHOSE RELATIVES OWNED PROPERTY. The result was TURNED INTO MASS MURDER BY LYING MORONIC PHONY HISTORIANS IN THE 1990s, rather, I should say, to GREATER mass murder than the ALREADY TERRIBLE repressive executions by the hundreds of thousands. It was known what was going on in the early 1930s outside the Soviet Union, the process was widely denounced in Western media, and collectivization led to hard-to-estimate famine deaths in the way it leads to drops in production whenever it is tried, as for example it did in China, Yugoslavia, and elsewhere. Yugoslavia reversed collectivization after less than a year, and farming output rebounded immediately. Cuba never even collectivized the farming because they learned from this terrible experience. In the US, the large factory farms have a similar drop in efficiency compared to small plots farmed individually, but the arable land is larger, and the privately managed factory farming was significantly more efficient than state farming. This was Gorbachev's specialty, he was a specialist in farming and a specialist in Ukrainian production, as this is what he did in the planning days. He also saw firsthand suffering from hunger in the 1930s, and had firsthand experience with collectivization.
The famine was real, people went hungry, including a young Gorbachev, but NOBODY HAS GOOD ESTIMATES for the death toll, the death toll is estimated using the dip in the very same census data that you are MORONICALLY contesting. Death tolls in communist famines involve fewer direct victims of starvation, because the distribution of food is relatively uniform and there is access to medical care for those who succumb to hunger or disease. The 1940s Dutch famine is an example where a capitalist country successfully mitigated mass deaths by enforcing an equitable distribution of the much-too-small supply of food. The Soviets could not be as good as the Dutch, but they were better than England and the Irish. My personal estimate, coming from MY ASS, is that between 2 and 3 million people died directly as a result of the collectivization famine. This is reasonably consistent with the demographic declines of the early 1930s. It COULD BE HIGHER, but I TRUST MY ASS OVER ANY ESTIMATE COMING TODAY, because of the RECURRING DELIBERATE OBVIOUS LYING REGARDING ALL THIS STUFF. You can't trust people in the field to be honest anymore, let alone a mentally defective pontificating philosopher who never did any deep random sampling survey of mortality rates from various causes in the early 1930s nor ever made a consistent picture.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "... five good historians, usually left-leaning, study the details of the Soviet Union, and give you accurate 'low-ball' estimates."
Ah, the pushy associations of "good" with "left-leaning", and "accurate" with "low-ball" -- nothing subtle about your propaganda, Ron!
"Then come a bunch of bourgoise writers and 'historians'...."
Oh that word "bourgoise"... it just begs to be said in a room with a Che poster, and perhaps an aroma of pot smoke, doesn't it?
"... who create numbers out of thin air...."
But then how would they get all those footnotes?
"... to advance their own power."
What power, Ron?
Ohhh, you mean the same kind of "power" the left-leaners get?
Well then, why doesn't that motive count against both sides equally?
"I CAN TELL WHO IS RIGHT."
By guessing and making blind assumptions and then sticking to them no matter what, in spite of any attempts to correct you or point out facts you've ignored -- just as you did in this Weev case, as a result of which you fell for what you admit were falsehoods uttered by "stupid propagandists" (and you refused to concede that any of the stupidity might have been your own for believing them instead of checking the facts when urged to do so). Well, what a splendid track record you've shown so far. What a basis for confidence we should all have by now in your ability to tell who is right.
"The Soviets didn't lie too much...."
Any sentence that starts with those six words doesn't deserve to be said.
"You would see mass deaths in nearly every family...."
The point you are missing is that you would also see entire families die out, with no members left to answer pollsters' questions about how many members died -- especially 70 years later -- which means any poll-based measurement will necessarily and drastically underestimate deaths. By definition, only surviving families would have members available to answer questions.
"The left wingers here are 100% honest and 100% right...."
That speaks volumes in itself. And neither they nor you ever once considered the fallacy of polling members of only the surviving families (70 years later) to estimate death tolls?
"Death tolls in communist famines involve fewer direct victims of starvation, because the distribution of food is relatively uniform and there is access to medical care for those who succumb to hunger or disease."
Except in this case the food was specifically taken *away* from the kulaks to let them starve, and no, they were not given medical care instead. The idea of "relative uniformity" wouldn't have fit Stalin's explicit order to "liquidate kulaks as a class".
At this point it's clear that you're engaging in a deliberate historical falsehood.
"I TRUST MY ASS OVER ANY ESTIMATE COMING TODAY, because of the RECURRING DELIBERATE OBVIOUS LYING REGARDING ALL THIS STUFF."
But you've given the rest of us no reason to trust your ass over anything at all, especially now that your ass has been caught in a plain lie.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYOU MENTALLY CHALLENGED TWIT, nobody ever gets ANYTHING from LOWBALLING Soviet death tolls! You get shunned and marginalized, because you are seen as communist coddling! It's like low-balling figures on the Holocaust, there's only one side pushing back, and in these cases, you get monstrous errors due to people following self-interest. Believe me, it is not in my self interest to explain the honest estimates of Soviet death. If I just said "Stalin killed 20 million" or better yet "Stalin killed 60 million", I would get absolutely no trouble, and if I wrote a book that said this, I would get on TV.
The Soviets were EXTREMELY HONEST internally regarding production, because they had all the documents. The KULAKS were not LIQUIDATED by TAKING THEIR FOOD, they were liquidated by confiscating their farm, and then taking their production, and they would the be expected to join a Kolkhoz and get their wages and buy their bread at the same government store as everyone else. They didn't have enough to buy in the early 1930s, because Ukraine was undersupplied, but the famine's effects were not as lopsided as made to appear in the West, and regions abutting the Ukraine suffered too, although perhaps not as harshly.
The LYING consists of DISTORTING THE NUMBERS to say 20 million or 60 million died. TO CLAIM THAT ALL THESE PEOPLE WERE LIQUIDATED WITH ALL THEIR RELATIVES AND THEIR EXTENDED FAMILIES AND THE EXTENDED FAMILY BEYOND AND SO ON, RECURSIVELY, IS BEYOND PREPOSTEROUS, IT IS COMPLETELY INCOMPREHENSIBLE STUPIDITY. I CAN'T EVEN BELIEVE ANYONE WOULD SUGGEST THIS WITH A STRAIGHT FACE.
I can do the Holocaust estimates on Jews using this method, a typical surviving Polish family lost 70% of members, and this is all survivor bias, because a lot of families were liquidated entirely. But the estimate comes out ballpark right, as it does for Hungarians, for French, and so on. You can, simply by examining family history, get an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE ESTIMATE, and this allows you to know which of the detailed historians is telling the truth.
I don't expect ANYONE to trust me! I HAVE NO AUTHORITY, AND NOBODY ELSE DOES EITHER. I expect anyone interested in this to look up the Ukrainian and Soviet census data, to examine the arguments that people made for 3 million deaths, 5 million deaths, 20 million deaths and 60 million deaths, to ask a dozen or so Russians and Ukranians to tell their family stories of the period, and to CONCLUDE AFTERWARDS that the true number of famine victims is between 2-5 million, and NOWHERE NEAR 20 million.
I also can't discuss with you any further, as you have revealed a worse and more monstrous kind of intellectual dishonesty here than anywhere else.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "The KULAKS were not LIQUIDATED by TAKING THEIR FOOD, they were liquidated by confiscating their farm, and then taking their production...."
And what, poor slow Ron, is the "production" of a farm?
What did peasant farmers eat or trade for food?
If they grew grain, they ate bread or porridge; if they raised chickens, they ate eggs and sometimes chicken meat; if they had cattle, they drank milk, had cheese and butter, and sometimes beef. From what they sold of what they grew, they could buy other things. Take away all their production, you take all their food.
Sequence: if you've confiscated the farm *first*, what "production" remains to be confiscated *later*? (Viking leader: "First we burn the village, then we pillage it!" Muttered discussion among Vikings. Viking leader: "Ummm, other way 'round!")
Wasn't their food taken? From Kulak:
During 1929-1933, the grain quotas were placed artificially high. It became a cat and mouse game between the peasants and government officials, as peasants would attempt to hide grain and bury it. According to historian Robert Conquest, every brigade had someone with a long iron bar to probe the ground for grain caches, and peasants who did not show signs of hunger, (whose bodies were not swollen) were especially suspected of hiding food. Conquest states:
When the snow melted true starvation began. People had swollen faces and legs and stomachs. They could not contain their urine...And now they ate anything at all. They caught mice, rats, sparrows, ants, earthworms. They ground up bones into flour, and did the same with leather and shoe soles...
As Vasily Grossman explained, the activists who helped the GPU (the secret police) with arrests and deportations,
were all people who know one another well, and knew their victims, but in carrying out this task they became dazed, stupefied... They would threaten people with guns, as if they were under a spell, calling small children ‘kulak bastards,’ screaming ‘bloodsuckers!’... They had sold themselves on the idea that so-called ‘kulaks’ were pariahs, untouchables, vermin. They would not sit down at a ‘parasite’s’ table; the ‘kulak’ child was loathsome, the young ‘kulak’ girl was lower than a louse...
Party activists taking actions against the starving villagers found themselves confronting cognitive dissonance as they processed realities of the day through the prism of ideology. Lev Kopelev, who later became a Soviet dissident, explained the conditions:
It was excruciating to see and hear all of this. And even worse to take part in it... And I persuaded myself, explained to myself. I mustn’t give in to debilitating pity. We were realizing historical necessity. We were performing our revolutionary duty. We were obtaining grain for the socialist fatherland. For the Five Year Plan...Thereafter what was left for *any* of a raided kulak family to eat? For father, mother, or children? How "individually", how "selectively", were members of this family starved? Would there always be survivors to tell the tale? (Who survives with no food? Here it is the killers telling the tale.) Did they partake in a "relatively uniform distribution of food"? (No, there are photos of kulaks' gaunt starved bodies stretched out where they fell on the open ground.) Is there mention of a medical crew standing by in case of malnutrition, as you earlier suggested? Get real.
Yet after the above wretchedly stupid and illogical lie you have the unmitigated gall to claim, "you have revealed a worse and more monstrous kind of intellectual dishonesty here than anywhere else."
Here: Denial of the Holodomor, about what was originally a Soviet disinformation campaign to conceal and deny the famine altogether, and has since (with the famine itself being undeniable) become an ongoing attempt to minimize, and deflect the blame for, the death toll figures, even calling them right-wing (Nazi!) propaganda -- as in the 2008 Russia Today article arguing "that the number of victims were exaggerated by sloppy analytical methods and that the accusations of intentional causation of the famine were politically motivated and not based on fact." Ooooo, that sounds familiar, where have I seen such arguments recently?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreYou are IGNORANT of the form of the Soviet economy. The farms were siezed and collectivized, and those peasants who could not make a living were driven to join the collective farms. The collectivization in the Ukraine produced collectivized farming and famine. What it did NOT produce is 11 million DEAD KULAKS. It produced 11 million FORMER KULAKS, some of whom died during the famine.
The extent of all this is disputed, and one should actually do a survey of families to determine the extent of the famine. I urge you to start with yours. One should do this individually, because states can't be trusted to do objective research. The size of the famine is roughly comparable to the Irish famine, where the family stories easily let you get an accurate estimate of the number of victims. You should see a large number of infant and elderly deaths in 1932-33, which will let you pinpoint the number of victims to within 10%. I'd guess 2-3 million people died in the famine, and that guess is better than the toilet paper estimates you get from so-called scholars today.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "... those peasants who could not make a living were driven to join the collective farms."
Already you forget that kulaks were specifically set apart from other peasants, by Stalin's order, to be "liquidated as a class" -- and already you forget how it was done.
When a farming family had starved to death because every last bit of food, even the seed grain they might have planted, was taken away (and consumed elsewhere), there was no resistance left to that farm being collectivized. But there was also nothing left to plant or raise on that newly collectivized farm -- and here was the idiotic oversight that contributed to a nationwide famine. Stalin's pride would not allow him to accept food from other nations; he could not admit there was even a famine, despite the photographs of gaunt starved people (and corpses) appearing in the foreign press.
"The extent of all this is disputed, and one should actually do a survey of families to determine the extent of the famine. I urge you to start with yours."
Had you even bothered to read the Amazon summary where I linked you to my eldest aunt's family memoir, you might have noticed mention of Siberia (where my grandmother was shot) and then Manchuria (where my grandfather died during the Japanese occupation). How lucky they were not to be in Ukraine during the famine; at least their children survived. Distant cousins, perhaps, at least shared-surnames, have survived in Ukraine to date, one the assistant to a recent Ukrainian president, another the Rada (Parliament) member who famously broke a Communist delegate's nose in the Rada chamber then wiped the blood off his fist on the man's shirt saying that was for all the blood the Communists had spilled -- should I survey *him*, Ron?
You see, I have kept track. So your sorry, and I must say, ignorant attempts at historical revisionism -- potty-mouthed as they may be -- don't work in the slightest.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreThe KULAKS were LIQUIDATED AS A CLASS by CONFISCATING THEIR PROPERTY and driven to join the collective farms, where they would be assigned jobs and given a wage. They often REFUSED to do this, and resisted the confiscation of their property with violent reprisals or by destroying their property before it could be confiscated. These might be natural reactions to confiscation, but that is what was going on--- a large chunk of the nation was in revolt.
The story you tell is IDIOTIC as usual. The farmer would not have thier farm coverted to a collective farm overnight, the land would be seized, the grain would be siezed, and collective farms would open up in separate places with separate people running them. The issue is that the landholders objected to the seizure, and the government collectively punished the region by withholding food aid. This is a form of collective punishment which can be classified as genocide, but you NEED TO KNOW WHAT WAS HAPPENING, and YOU CAN'T MAKE CRAP UP WILLY NILLY, LIKE YOU LIKE TO DO.
The foreign press reports were all fabricated, journalists could not go there. These reports are stupid, they are long discredited, and they came from the Hearst yellow press which was MENTALLY RETARDED. Still, the fact that people are LYING, doesn't mean that they get it WRONG. DESPITE THE LYING, THERE STILL WAS A FAMINE. But the Hearst press reports are not evidence, and the people reporting these things were just doing propaganda using other people's suffering.
The best evidence is from your own family and that of others. You can examine the current age of Ukranians, to see the characteristic childhood mortality dip caused by a famine. You can ask people about lost children, lost farms, what happened in the year of the famine. When you do, you will get a reasonable estimate of the causalties--- I estlmate they were roughly in the 2-3 million range, perhaps as high as 5 million, perhaps 7 million, but no more. They also have nothing to do with the Kulaks, who were shot in the hundreds of thousands, but make a relatively negligible contribution to the death toll. There was a smaller numbers of deaths outside the Ukraine due to the famine also, and there is dispute about whether the food relief efforts discriminated against the Ukraine.
Those who were on collective farms did not starve, although they also suffered from the food shortages. You need to LEARN TO BE HONEST, and then ONE CAN DISCUSS. Until then, just shut up, because all you are doing is ignorant propaganda.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "The story you tell is IDIOTIC as usual. The farmer would not have thier farm coverted to a collective farm overnight, the land would be seized, the grain would be siezed, and collective farms would open up in separate places with separate people running them. The issue is that the landholders objected to the seizure, and the government collectively punished the region by withholding food aid."
Ron, do you read the stuff you write? Do you even begin to realize how many self-contradictions you've managed to twist yourself into here, in the course of trying to rationalize your earlier lies?
1) If the land was seized, why would the grain be seized from the land? The grain would need to be planted on the land for the next crop. (The excess from last crop's harvest would either have been sold already or be the family's food supply, which you insisted wasn't taken from them.)
2) Why would collective farms open up in SEPARATE places? The whole purpose of seizing THIS farm was to collectivize THIS farm, perhaps together with its neighbors.
3) Yes, certainly landholders would object to the seizures if still alive, though once dead of starvation they would make very little objection let alone struggle. But in either case, why would "the government collectively punish the region" (including all the NON-kulaks??? cooperative peasants? workers?), let alone "by withholding food aid" (if the farmers were still allowed to keep their own food)?
You've left behind not only historical fact but internal logic.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "The foreign press reports were all fabricated, journalists could not go there. These reports are stupid, they are long discredited, and they came from the Hearst yellow press...."
Despite appearing (with photos of the starved gaunt living and dead) in European papers which Hearst didn't own, right. That was the excuse the Soviets gave while they were still denying that there was any famine at all, they HAD to say all such reports were faked by political opponents in the press... but wouldn't that fall flat once the evidence of the famine's reality became overwhelming?
Oh NO, as you demonstrate, the liars are not those who DENIED the famine, the liars are those who REPORTED the famine! (How's this? The famine really happened!) Well, yes, but they still lied when they REPORTED that it did! *triumphant nod*
"Still, the fact that people are LYING, doesn't mean that they get it WRONG."
The fact that what they reported was TRUE doesn't make it not a LIE?
This goes beyond Marx. This is Orwellian doublethink.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "[The casualties] also have nothing to do with the Kulaks, who... make a relatively negligible contribution to the death toll."
Certainly if you're measuring by polling the survivors. And if you poll the current surviving population of Germany or Poland about their own relatives, you'll find there can't have been many Jews to begin with before WWII, let alone many killed during it. [Because, ta-daaa, the current populations have distinctly fewer Jews for some reason.] Or poll the people who were NOT shot during the École Polytechnique massacre in 1989 about their gendered experience of the event, and you'll conclude that men overwhelmingly bore the brunt of the trauma. [The killer preferred to shoot and kill women.] Do you still not understand the fallacy in that method?
"There was a smaller numbers of deaths outside the Ukraine due to the famine also...."
Whoops, you're slipping from the approved message for once! The Russian Foreign Ministry argues against the idea of anti-Ukraine genocide, that not only Ukrainians died in the Great Famine, that to single out Ukrainians as victims insults others who died, that the "declaration of the tragic events of that time as act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation is a unilateral misinterpretation of history in favor of modern conformist political and ideological principles."
"... just shut up...."
Ah, there you are. The bully surfaces at last. We all knew you were lurking, defending Weev as a soul-brother no matter the superficial differences. No surprise here.
And no success for you. Too bad, so sad.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "The Soviets were EXTREMELY HONEST internally...."
The Soviets were masters of disinformation, to the outside world, to their own population, and in their own records when covering up their own mistakes and crimes. The genocidal Holodomor was one such crime: "in the Soviet Union – of which Ukraine was a member – references to the famine were controlled, even after de-Stalinization in 1956. Historians could speak only of 'food difficulties', and the use of the very word golod/holod (hunger, famine) was forbidden."
How forbidden? "Mention of the famine was criminalized, punishable with a five-year term in the Gulag labor camps. Blaming the authorities was punishable by death. ...
"The true number of dead was concealed. ... The GPU was directly involved in the deliberate destruction of actual birth and death records, as well as the fabrication of false information to cover up information regarding the causes and scale of death in Ukraine. Similar falsifications of official records were widespread.
"The January 1937 census, the first in 11 years, was intended to reflect the achievements of Stalin's rule. It became evident that population growth particularly in Ukraine failed to meet official targets.... Those collecting the data, senior statisticians with decades of experience, were arrested and executed, including three successive heads of the Soviet Central Statistical Administration. ....
"The subsequent 1939 census was organized in a manner that certainly inflated data on population numbers. It showed a population figure of 170.6 million people, manipulated so as to match the numbers stated by Joseph Stalin in his report to the 18th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party that March. No other census in the Soviet Union was conducted until 1959."So if you claim the Soviet records about that period are reliable evidence for "low-ball" death-tolls, then you might as well also trust their edited photographs of historical events (e.g. the October Revolution) that removed later dis-favorites (e.g. Trotsky) from between two still-favorite figures (e.g. Lenin, Stalin). Right, Trotsky was never part of that team!
Here's the President of Ukraine, addressing a Joint Session of the US Congress in 2005:
"... My father, Andriy Yushchenko was a prisoner of Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Dachau. As a child, I heard my father's stories about the hell of concentration camps. I am a son of a nation that survived the most terrible tragedies of the 20th century: the Holodomor famine that took away 20 million lives of Ukrainians and the Holocaust. ..."
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreThe mention of hunger was a state offence in 1950, it wasn't an offence in 1959, when the Soviet Union was trying to get its act together. The attacks on the census bureau did lead to fudging problems. Such census problems were LOCALIZED, and can be worked around by any good historian by reviewing local labor and production numbers which include economic figures which are verified internally, which do not suffer from fudging problems because they are not ever delivered to Mr. Joseph. I WASN'T USING THE 170 MILLION CENSUS, NOBODY TOOK THOSE INFLATED NUMBERS SERIOUSLY, NOT INTERNALLY AND NOT EXTERNALLY.
The collectivization famine led millions of people to go hungry, and a certain number of weakened people died of hunger or disease, possibly two million, maybe six million (you need to verify these sorts of claims with a personally conducted survey of random Ukranain families). Informal estimates of Ukrainian population decline in 1932-33 are of about 5 million deaths, and it seems to be greater than Ukrainian deaths in WWII, although you need to verify this by reviewing randomly selected family records, and seeing the statistics for mortality in WWII compared to death by starvation. Both are widely randomly distributed, and the comparison is fair. PLEASE DO THE COMPARISON, because I want to know what was actually happening. You can start with your own family, and that of Ukrainians you know--- what's the number and ratio of WWII deaths and 1932-33 famine deaths?
It's difficult to know what was happening because there is a GOVERNMENT making DISHONEST, LYING, STRUCTURAL PROPAGANDA, and IDIOTS LIKE YOU lying with them, repeating RIDICULOUS ASSERTIONS where every confiscation of property and arrest gets turned into an execution. This is LYING about human misery, and also profiting from it. Just BE HONEST and do the estimates independently.
The Ukrainian famine numbers were first acknowledged during the Khruschov thaw, when Soviet citizens acquired some freedom of speech and press to discuss Stalin's problems. The famine was discussed OPENLY AGAIN in Gorbachev's time, who personally suffered from hunger during the collectivization period. It wasn't disguised in the 1980s, it was analyzed FOR THE SECOND TIME. This is the period when I went into these events in depth, because data was available, and it was of topical interest.
The current claims of 20 million deaths is ABSOLUTELY PREPOSTEROUS, and cannot be abided in an environment of academic honesty. It is MAKING A MOCKERY of other mass-murder claims, and it shows a level of DISHONESTY and STUPIDITY in regard to analysis of government data that has not been seen since before the 20th century.
The number of Ukrainians that disappear is the order of 5-7 million, this is a census dip, an includes migration and prevented births. The population figures do attest to a tremendous amount of suffering, which is indicative of extreme economic hardship and famine, partly deliberately inflicted by Stalin's policies.
But DISHONEST IDIOTS take the process which eliminated 11 million kulaks and produced 10.5 million former-kulak collective farmers and state laborors, and call it the EXECUTION of 11 million kulaks. This is INTOLERABLE ASSAULT on academic honesty.
This stuff was extremely repressive and extremely terrible WITHOUT LYING, just using HONEST HISTORICAL ANALYSIS.
Lying crap just can't work when I can challenge and cuss at you freely, and you don't get this. You can do a survey of 100 Ukrainians, and find out the accurate extent of the famine. It's something I expect you TO DO and to HONESTLY ANALYZE THE RESULTS before PARROTTING OFFICIAL NONSENSE.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "I WASN'T USING THE 170 MILLION CENSUS, NOBODY TOOK THOSE INFLATED NUMBERS SERIOUSLY, NOT INTERNALLY AND NOT EXTERNALLY."
You didn't even faintly HINT at this caution when you said earlier:
"The Soviets were EXTREMELY HONEST internally.... I expect anyone interested in this to look up the Ukrainian and Soviet census data...."
If not that manipulated 1939 census, then what? No other census was taken until 1959, which was a generation after the famine (and also after WWII, which tends to obscure whatever went before).
No, you were willing to let readers *believe* those numbers until I exposed them as deliberate deception, and now you say you never meant *those* numbers -- but there were no *other* census numbers soon after the famine! Your "100% honest and 100% right" sources are relying on Stalinist disinformation as their historical records!
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "... local labor and production numbers which include economic figures which are verified internally, which do not suffer from fudging problems because they are not ever delivered to Mr. Joseph."
The orders went top-down, which doesn't mean the detailed numbers had to go all the way back up. "At the Kiev Medical Inspectorate, for example, the actual number of corpses, 9,472, was recorded as only 3,997."
"The famine was discussed OPENLY AGAIN in Gorbachev's time, who personally suffered from hunger during the collectivization period."
Oh, you want a person-by-person survey? Gorbachev wrote in his 2006 Manifesto for the Earth: "In that terrible year [in 1933] nearly half the population of my native village, Privolnoye, starved to death, including two sisters and one brother of my father."
Nearly half the entire village. Not just a family-by-family sampling.
By the way, one of the people who "threw around" big numbers that bother you so much was veteran dissident Viacheslav Chornovil, who wrote to Gorbachev about the denial of the famine:
"The biggest and most infamous blank spot in the Soviet history of Ukraine is the hollow silence for over 50 years about the genocide of the Ukrainian nation organized by Stalin and his henchmen ... The Great Famine of 1932-33, which took millions of human lives. In one year—1933—my people lost more than throughout all of World War II, which ravaged our land."Which I think addresses another of your questions.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "I expect anyone interested in this to look up the Ukrainian and Soviet census data...."
Which is already known to be the product of Stalinist disinformation:
"The GPU was directly involved in... the fabrication of false information to cover up information regarding the causes and scale of death in Ukraine. Similar falsifications of official records were widespread.
"The January 1937 census, the first in 11 years, was intended to reflect the achievements of Stalin's rule. It became evident that population growth particularly in Ukraine failed to meet official targets.... Those collecting the data, senior statisticians with decades of experience, were arrested and executed, including three successive heads of the Soviet Central Statistical Administration. ....
"The subsequent 1939 census was organized in a manner that certainly inflated data on population numbers. It showed a population figure of 170.6 million people, manipulated so as to match the numbers stated by Joseph Stalin in his report to the 18th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party that March. No other census in the Soviet Union was conducted until 1959."So Ron Maimon is referring his readers to known falsified records as his "evidence".
Vladimir Kalitvianski Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreHi Ron, how are you doing? I haven't seen you on PO lately, why?
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "You stupid twit, the population census figures for the Soviet Union were ALWAYS HONEST AND RELIABLE, unlike your INSIPID INSINUATIONS, these figures were used for everything from labor apportionment. industrial relocations, planning for industrial cities, they were central to the process of planning, and these people took their planning seriously. You are now disputing the SOVIET CENSUS? What data don't you dispute? You retarded ape. Give it up. You're just blowing rhetoric. It doesn't work online."
I'm not even going to post, for a third time, the details of how the 1937 census was rejected, its senior statisticians executed, and the 1939 census faked to conceal the famine and match the figures Stalin had already announced. In short, Stalinist disinformation. No further census was done until 20 years later (well after the end of WWII, which had its own drastic effects).
"ALWAYS HONEST AND RELIABLE", you say here.
And then *after* I expose the 1939 census as disinformation, you say:
"I WASN'T USING THE 170 MILLION CENSUS, NOBODY TOOK THOSE INFLATED NUMBERS SERIOUSLY, NOT INTERNALLY AND NOT EXTERNALLY."
Which kind of conflicts with "ALWAYS HONEST AND RELIABLE".
Do you really think no-one notices you talking out both sides of your mouth?
No wonder physicists won't have anything to do with you.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYOU CAN'T DEMOLISH MY CREDIBILITY, FARTBAG, I DON'T HAVE ANY! Physicists don't want to have anything to do with me, NOBODY wants anything to do with me, I'm always one step away from homelessness. WHO CARES? Only the text matters. Isn't the internet lovely?
The census bureau in the 1930s was attacked politically, but THESE ARE NOT THE FIGURES ONE USES TO ESTIMATE THE FAMINE. You can easily estimate the famine deaths from polling families, YOU COULD DO IT TOO, IF YOU WEREN'T A DISHONEST FASCIST APOLOGIST. This is a simple way of estimating famine mortality, it works very well for the Irish famine after more than 150 years, it works very well for ALL FAMINES. The Famine in the USSR in 1932 was accompanied by food insecurity relief efforts which mitigated the death toll, and it was brief, as the 1933 harvest was abundant. The famine year might have claimed 6 million lives in the USSR, it is POSSIBLE, but it might have claimed 2 million lives, or 8 million lives, as it is difficult to estimate with dishonest CHARLATANS running about claiming numbers pulled out of their behinds as worthy of respect.
The process of collectivization in the Ukraine was accompanied by confiscation of land, forcible removal of grain and seed stock, and the complete destruction of private farming, and the simultaneous introduction of intrinsically less efficient collective farming. This process is a terrible crime IN ITSELF, and the associated famine is A PREDICTABLE CONSEQUENCE today, after the experience of 1932 and the analogous experience in China in the 1960s, but it was not clear to communists steeped in 1930s propaganda. Collectivization leads to famine, it is well known today, it was simply not known in 1932.
The death toll of the famine is by far the largest mortality associated with Stalin's turn at the top. This famine mortality swamps all other mortalities from executions and labor mortality, which are estimated and compiled in serious journals by serious historians, and do not amount to a greater death toll than street homelessness does in the US. This IS NOT TO MINIMIZE EITHER DEMOCIDE, street homelessness is terrible, and the gulag was terrible, in roughly equal measure. The famine is something else altogether, because it meant food insecurity for enormous chunks of the entire Soviet Union, and it should have been a predictable consequence of the policy of collectivization, but it wasn't predicted. Instead, these consequences were swept under the rug.
The attribution of the famine deaths to Stalin is, in my opinion, justified, because of the political hiding of the famine. But it is ARGUABLE, because the collectivization was not a one-man job, it was supported by rank-and-file party members, and the famine was NOT DELIBERATE, it was due to THE USUAL COMMUNIST STUPIDITY, although the relief effort might have been selective in targeting the Ukraine. The famine has been OBSCENELY POLITICIZED and subject to MADE UP PROPAGANDA ESTIMATES, and there is no discussion with HISTORICAL FABRICATORS. Whether you are a socialist or a liberal, the only defence against darkness is telling the truth LOUDLY.
The enormous numbers of deaths people claim under Stalin are INCOMPREHENSIBLY STUPID, EASILY REFUTED, REPREHENSIBLE LIES which have been studied and understood since the opening of the historical archives in the USSR in 1989. I am not arguing with such stupidity, simply because I don't need to--- there are dozens of honest socialist and honest liberal web pages which describe the deaths in that period, as well as dozens of dishonest socialist and dishonest liberal web pages describing the same events. These are full of authoritative citations and figures, and it is extremely easy to see who is telling the truth when estimating the deaths.
Those who make up large numbers conflate loss of property with loss of life. They turn every kulak who lost their land into a victim of homicide, and turn every imprisonment or demotion into a murder. But since their numbers are drawn from honest sources, it is very easy to see what is really going on by simply reinterpreting the same figures honestly. There were indeed about 20 million people demoted at some point in Stalin's time, and if you consider getting fired from a nice position a type of victimization, then in some figurative sense, perhaps 20 million party members were victims. Stalin played musical chairs with the leadership of the party. But this is a TRAVESTY and a MOCKERY of the actual victims who were executed. The figures of 20 million dead, 60 million dead, or 110 million dead are simply incomprehensibly stupid laughable jokes, and deserve mention only as an example of how divorced from any notions of accuracy the liberal press has become in recent decades.
There is NO BASIS IN FACT FOR THE CLAIMS OF TENS OF MILLIONS DEAD, and one cannot argue against a person who makes such claims, simply expose you for what you are, a pathetic lying fraud.
Vladimir Kalitvianski Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreHi Ron, you exaggerate, you do have credibility in my eyes.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "YOU CAN'T DEMOLISH MY CREDIBILITY,... I DON'T HAVE ANY!"
Well, when you cite known Soviet disinformation as "honest and reliable"....
Ron Maimon: "Physicists don't want to have anything to do with me, NOBODY wants anything to do with me, I'm always one step away from homelessness."
Ron, call 211. In NYC as in all 50 states (and growing areas of Canada), it's the social-services help number. Affordable housing, homeless services, food pantries and soup kitchens, free clinics, child care, parenting programs, debt counseling, financial assistance, job counseling, psychotherapy counseling, suicide prevention, telephone reassurance, addiction counseling, and so on.
It sounds like just having someone to talk to could help.
... skipping much shouting....
Ron Maimon: "The figures of 20 million dead,... are simply incomprehensibly stupid laughable jokes.... There is NO BASIS IN FACT FOR THE CLAIMS OF TENS OF MILLIONS DEAD...."
Odd you should say that. On about the middle of the (8M-61M) range of estimates for "casualties for the Stalinist period":
A former Politburo member? Yes, and A. N. Yakovlev was also Gorbachev's close ally in glasnost and perestroika.
Not exactly someone to be called either "ignorant" or "anti-Russian propagandistic". But no doubt you will find some insidious motive to impute to him, whereby even his modest estimate is to be deemed outrageously high.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou STUPID TWIT, I don't NEED HELP! I ENJOY BEING MARTYRED! Haven't you figured that out yet? I also prefer it if IDIOTS LIKE YOU don't listen to me when I tell them the truth, because IT MAKES ME FEEL SUPERIOR TO THEM. It's a nice feeling!
What you still don't get is that I don't need credibilty I don't have to be persuasive, I don't need to have status, I just need to be right. That I am, and that's enough. The internet is DIFFERENT in that way, you see.
Alexander Nikolaevich is LYING, JUST LIKE NEARLY EVERYONE IN RUSSIA! Probably without intention, they are just too stupid with statistics to know the truth. You know, "three million, eight million, twenty million, what's the difference?"
You don't understand post-Soviet politics, EVERYONE HATES COMMUNISM, and they want to make it look as bad as possible, and they DON'T WANT COMMUNIST CODDLERS AROUND. That makes a strong incentive to lie, because nobody has any stake in historical accuracy. Historical accuracy is the FIRST VICTIM in these sorts of times, and these people are simply TALKING OUT OF THEIR ANUS, JUST LIKE YOU.
This is not ANTI-RUSSIAN, at least not if you mean post-Soviet Russia, it is simply PROPAGANDA. The propaganda is to emphasize the very real suffering in Soviet times using CRAP NUMBERS PULLED OUT OF ASSES. I care more about accurate numbers than people's suffering. I actually don't give a crap about people. My concern here is with accurate numbers. I just HATE lying with numbers worse than anything else!
The number of Stalin executions is in the .5-1.5 million range. The number of Stalin famine deaths is more uncertain, but it is most likely between 2 and 6 million, and that's all USSR during 1932. That's it. There's nothing else. Everything else is STUPID LYING by people who don't GIVE A CRAP ABOUT HISTORICAL ACCURACY, and POLLUTE THE LITERATURE WITH THEIR FARTS.
His ESTIME IS NOT AN ESTIMATE, IT IS AN ABSURD POLITICAL LIE, immediately exposed with the smallest understanding of statisics, and the sightest familiarity with the historical documents. But this IDIOT is probably not a numbers person. Politicians usualy aren't.
Historians don't need IDIOTS LIKE THESE meddling in the assessment of historical casualties. The people who talk out of their asses are uniformly ignorant about the official statistics, and also do not understand that PEOPLE CAN INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY the death toll, by simple random sampling.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "I also prefer it if IDIOTS LIKE YOU don't listen to me when I tell them the truth...."
Well, perhaps you could let us know when you are finally going to get around to telling a truth, instead of telling lies while SHOUTING that they are TRUE (as with your citations of Soviet disinformation), so we can decide whether to listen or not when that time arrives.
"He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions."
— Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 19 August 1785"I just need to be right."
Yes, I observed this before, and even asked: "Could he be a Right Man, in A.E. van Vogt's and Colin Wilson's sense?" (I suppose you didn't click those links either.)
"Alexander Nikolaevich is LYING, JUST LIKE NEARLY EVERYONE IN RUSSIA! Probably without intention, they are just too stupid with statistics to know the truth."
In a courtroom this would be called "impeaching your own witness". You spent comment after comment thumping on the HONESTY and RELIABILITY of Soviet census reports and other statistics that your preferred left-leaning historians relied upon -- and now you say the very opposite?! Whatever happened to:
"In the case of the USSR, the mainstream deniers are 100% right.... These folks use official figures to compute what was happening, and they are doing good historical work. ... the population census figures for the Soviet Union were ALWAYS HONEST AND RELIABLE, unlike your INSIPID INSINUATIONS, these figures were used for everything from labor apportionment. industrial relocations, planning for industrial cities, they were central to the process of planning, and these people took their planning seriously. You are now disputing the SOVIET CENSUS? What data don't you dispute?"So now your excuse for the flatly-false-to-fact 1930s census data is that they were "just too stupid with statistics to know the truth" ? No, they knew the truth. It was knowing the truth that got "[t]hose collecting the data, senior statisticians with decades of experience,... arrested and executed, including three successive heads of the Soviet Central Statistical Administration." The truth had been known and then very deliberately suppressed. A. N. Yakovlev as a Politburo member acquired access to the truth, or at least some of the scale of it. Later, as the "godfather of glasnost", he exposed it.
"You don't understand post-Soviet politics, EVERYONE HATES COMMUNISM, and they want to make it look as bad as possible, and they DON'T WANT COMMUNIST CODDLERS AROUND. That makes a strong incentive to lie, because nobody has any stake in historical accuracy."
Not even Gorbachev and Yakovlev, the men behind glasnost ? It was Gorbachev's cancelling the history exams "because there is no point in testing people's memorization of lies" that first gave me hope the gloom was lifting. I think you are accusing the wrong people of lying, and trusting the wrong people (Communists) as being "always honest and reliable". It's led you into bad habits of lying yourself -- look at how rapidly you had to keep contradicting yourself on which sources you declared reliable here, flagrant hypocrisy in full view, how can you bear it?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreI am aware of the lies of the communists, and I am also aware of the dishonesty and political pressure. What you are are not aware of is the complementary dishonesty on the other side, the liberal side. This dishonesty leads politicians to lie about statistics, as they are either too stupid, or figure the public is too stupid, to do accurate math.
There simply were no 20 million dead under Stalin. I don't have to be persuasive while I say it, because it is a simple and easily verified fact. You need to check case by case, and independent of BOTH the Soviets and the Liberals, because both of these devils lie.
The way you verify this is to go up to a former Soviet resident, and ask them:
"Who are your closest relatives killed by Stalin?"
This is usually a statistical sample of ~50-100 persons, depending on how large the extended family is. You can know exactly how many are sampled by asking about the extent of the family knowledge. All you need are 10 Russians and Ukrainians to get a reasonably accurate estimate.
If the death rate is 60 million, you expect two grandmothers killed and a grandfather, a third to half the family wiped out in a conflagration analogous to a limited nuclear holocaust. For 20 million, you expect every family to have one grandfather dead, a mortality in the first 8 people alive in the era. If it's 2 million, you expect a distant cousin to have been arrested, and to have heard about a distant second cousin who was executed or died of hunger. The last is the typical situation when interviewing Russians about personal family deaths, which are independent and not subject to manipulation by any authorities on either side.
The order of magnitude points to order 10 million arrested and order 1 million killed, something which is already atrocious levels of state terror, which do not need exaggeration to be seen as terrible.
Anything which is inconsistent with this order of magnitude is a lie. I don't need anyone to confirm this, as I have actually talked to Russians and Ukrainians, asking this quesiton, while doing this statistical estimation in my head, and so can you.
The famine deaths are a bit different, there were deaths by weakness and disease from the famine, mostly of young children, who tend to not get recorded in family oral history. These deaths perhaps amount to 5 million over the whole USSR, but perhaps 10 million also. The demographic dip for the USSR in the early 1930s is similar to the demographic dip in the US in the 1930s US (but much larger, perhaps about 20 million people). The US demographic dip claimed 5-10 million people demographically, although of course this simply all consists of postponed births, and these people reappear as the baby boom. You can't say "Hoover and Roosevelt murdered 5 million Americans! Eisenhower miraculously resuscitates them." because they didn't and he didn't.
I didn't read your links, because I have already concluded that you are a dishonest clown, and I ignore whatever you say. An honest person needs to sit down and do the survey I requested, which is easy for you, being Ukrainian--- you already know the answer. It just isn't the same as what you are doing propaganda for.
I also cite no sources, and give no persuasive argument, nor direct evidence, I let people do their own research. It is true that there was bad political census data in Stalin's time--- it is also true that I shout and scream, and tell you inconsistent things. It doesn't matter--- I am honest globally, which is all that matters, and I did not deliberately misinform anyone of anything, unlike you. While I did know about the census attack in the 1930s, I also know that it is easy to work around these kind of bad official numbers, because when the census bureau is attacked, it is only the global figures that need to be fudged. The local numbers are ok, for example, labor statistics for each city, and sampled birth and death records for each region. These are what are used by the honest historians to estimate the tolls from these tragedies, and these estimates are never sensationalist lying figures of 20 million or 60 million, but honest figures consistent with the sampling of family history.
The family history, which is available to any interested person who knows some Russians and Ukrainians, just doesn't care about the census takers, or about any officials at all.
What you are doing is only a game with authority, a game which simply does not work online, as it does in person or on TV (it's surprising, I know, but it's true). I verified the assertions I am making with excellent confidence a long time ago, anyone can check that the numbers people give here are made up, therefore I don't need to do anything except shout.
Also, say hi to Adolph Eichmann for me after you die.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "I am aware of the lies of the communists...."
If you were aware those lies were lies before I exposed your sources to be Soviet disinformation, then why did you keep waving them around as "ALWAYS HONEST AND RELIABLE" so that anything which contradicted them was "STUPID LIES"?
In fact, of the sewerfull of trashtalk that still issues from you, about half was due to my disputing what you now admit were "the lies of the communists" but you were then defending as TRUE at the top of your lungs. And you have neither stopped nor retracted as of your latest comment.
"I certainly won't use propaganda like you."
Of the two of us, you are the only one who has relied on proven disinformation.
"My first witness is the Soviet archives, which do not lie about the famine...."
[head-desk] But they do. Did someone else type "I am aware of the lies of the communists" into your keyboard earlier while you were away? The records, now archives, were falsified to cover up the famine, and even when its existence could no longer be denied, to minimize its scale and divert its blame, something even Putin's government continues (cf. the Russia Today article and Foreign Ministry quote) -- and you are enthusiastically joining in the effort to minimize its scale.
"If the death rate is 60 million, you expect two grandmother killed and a grandfather, half the family wiped out in a bubonic plague type holocaust."
And here you have Mikhail Gorbachev himself saying, of not just his family but his entire village for the sample population:
"In that terrible year [in 1933] nearly half the population of my native village, Privolnoye, starved to death, including two sisters and one brother of my father.""I didn't read your links, because I have already concluded that you are a dishonest clown, and I ignore whatever you say."
Interesting, because of course the linked sources exist entirely independent of me, so it doesn't matter who or what *I* am, only whether those sources (and in turn the sources they cite, etc.) can be trusted. That's generally one point of citing sources -- to let you ***find out*** whether the person who just threw quotes or stats at you is a dishonest clown or not. But you never read links, you only guess and assume, so whether you've guessed and assumed RIGHT... well, you can only assume that you have, which is utterly circular.
On the other hand, I *pay attention* to what you say, which is how I keep discovering all these self-contradictions (flaws of internal logic) as well as historical falsehoods in what you write -- and it's the sheer accumulation of these that led me to the conclusion that you're a deliberate liar, not merely a misled reader of erroneous texts.
Trust the Soviet census figures, you said, they're always honest and reliable! [shouting omitted] When the disinformation was exposed: Oh, I never used *those* figures, no-one used *those* figures, not internally, not externally! Then: Russians "are just too stupid with statistics to know the truth"! And "I am aware of the lies of the communists". But then back to: "My first witness is the Soviet archives, which do not lie about the famine...."!!! >>>> No, this is not how someone "innocently misled" writes.
"I also cite no sources, and give no direct evidence...."
You never cited Soviet census figures? Do you suffer memory loss often?
You don't link to specific *sites* to make it easy for your readers, true, but that's merely discourtesy on your part -- or trying to make your readers *take your word* for it, make them even rely on your bare assertion -- all of which I try to avoid by offering links, see? Then it doesn't rely on my assertion.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou have not changed my mind regarding anything, I am inconsistent simply because I am going by hazy memory, I forgot about the census fiasco of 1939, but you are right about that--- there was a censored census, I do remember. You are seeing contradictions, because you don't understand how official lying works--- there are figures for export, and figures used internally, and since 1989, we have had access to all the archives, and we can study them all and get a good picture. But that's not what happened, instead, the honest stuff has been suppressed, and dishonest lies have been promoted. You are promoting the lies.
My sources were never the Soviet census of 1939, I vaguely remember that, but it is usual lying nonsense. I never cited any sources at all for my claims, I don't need to, as I expect the reader to dig for themselves. But if you want the personal story, I personally read many of the discussions about the famine in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the Soviet archives were opened, and I went into great detail, including poring over whatever published statistics I could find, because I was curious about how Soviet communism could even function. I didn't understand how you could run an entire economy from the top down. I got a reasonable picture of all the relevant events, but I was 16 years old, and it was a long time ago. I am not going to repeat the effort, because there has been no new discoveries, all that has happened is that more and more vile propaganda has progressively replaced the honest (negative) assessments of the early 1990s.
I know the rough magnitude of the 1932 famine, it was pretty large as far as famines go. But a famine with 5 million death toll in a single year is an ENORMOUS famine, it is STUPENDOUS. It would leave a generational memory, it is not a small thing.
The famine was acknowledged to be large internally relatively honestly from Khruschev's time onwards. The census data you find in the 1950s are accurate and reliable, and generally the post-Stalin Soviet figures are very good. The global 1939 population census figures were lies, and these are not the "honest and reliable" figures I was talking about. The honest and reliable figures in that era are not global, but local statistics for labor and population, year of birth, year of death, which you can find in the Soviet archives and which allow historians to piece together a picture of the arrests and the famine.
The other source I used is randomly polled Russians and Ukrainians, just as a sanity check, to make sure I wasn't missing a holocaust. I did the same sanity check with European jews, to make sure that I wasn't inventing a holocaust. This is very easy to do personally, so you get a picture of the events without any reliance on anyone else. This is an important sanity check, a sanity check you didn't do, you lying little Eichmann.
There is one extremely notable person who reports a very high famine mortality in his village, that is Gorbachev. He claims 4 immediate relative dying, children and old folks all over his village, as is typical of a famine, he is telling the truth. The claim for a 40% mortality in his village is very credible, and there is no reason to dispute it, and I don't.
The famine was a serious thing, affecting large regions of the country, and there were places where the mortality was enormous. But there are also places with very few famine mortalities, like the big cities, or certain villages, because relief efforts or hidden sources of grain mitigated the starvation. You need a random sample of people to know what the extent of the famine was, so that you can estimate the number of victims properly. Taking one person among the worst affected and making them statistically representative is what you are doing. In order for the figures you claim are correct to actually be correct, Gorbachev's experience would have to be typical. It is not, Gorbachev experience reflects that of a minority of about 10%. That makes number of famine victims is surely quite large--- on the order of 2-5 million people, perhaps more, perhaps 10 million, perhaps even more 4% of the USSR population is 6.4 million people, that's a reasonable estimate. I personally don't know the precise figures, and it is difficult to estimate, because unlike political repression, the victims are generally invisible--- infants and the elderly.
The 1932-33 famine is by far the largest mortality associated with Stalin. It does not come anywhere near the claims of 20 million deaths or 60 million deaths, and it has nothing to do with political executions. The number of political executions is of the order of 1 million people. The remaining mortality is all famine deaths in one year, 1932-33, and these deaths were localized, and did not constitute direct repression, rather the usual indirect production and distribution stupidities of communism. You simply don't know how to think, so you conflate these in the same way other propagandists do.
The Soviet figures were honest and reliable regarding their internal labor statistics, internal births and deaths. The Soviet Union in the years after Stalin was generally pretty honest about Stalin's crimes, with some politically inexpedient exceptions like the Katyn massacre.
But I am talking to a buffoon, who does not understand subtlety, so it is better to just say "The Soviets were honest and reliable".
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "You have not changed my mind regarding anything, I am inconsistent simply because I am going by hazy memory, I forgot about the census fiasco of 1939, but you are right about that--- there was a censored census, I do remember."
And hey, wasn't there some German guy who tried to secretly kill a few Jews after that, and some folks tried to deny or minimize that too? Or no, my mistake, maybe that really didn't happen either. Gosh, hazy memory sure is going around these days!
"You are seeing contradictions, because you don't understand how official lying works...."
I have been trying to trepan into your thick skull the realization that official lying is exactly what you have been relying upon for your information sources.
... the honest stuff has been suppressed, and dishonest lies have been promoted.
As when the senior statisticians of the 1937 census were executed, and the 1939 census "books were cooked" to match Stalin's speech.
"You are promoting the lies."
How quickly you forget: *you* were promoting the Soviet census figures as "ALWAYS HONEST AND RELIABLE" [shouting in original] and calling me a stupid liar and a fascist (!) for disputing them. Now you admit they're just as dishonest and unreliable as I said they were -- Stalinist disinformation -- but you *still* accuse me of "promoting the lies." No, Ron, get it straight: I told the truth, you promoted the lies.
"The honest and reliable figures in that era are not global, but local statistics for labor and population, year of birth, year of death.... The Soviet figures were honest and reliable regarding their internal labor statistics, internal births and deaths."
When *you* say something is "honest and reliable", the hair should go up on the backs of people's necks. "The GPU was directly involved in the deliberate destruction of actual birth and death records, as well as the fabrication of false information to cover up information regarding the causes and scale of death in Ukraine. Similar falsifications of official records were widespread." [sources cited at linked article]
"... so it is better to just say 'The Soviets were honest and reliable'."
In answer to which, the faint and distant echo of hollow, bitter laughter rises from uncountable unmarked graves.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon [in separate comments]: "Physicists don't want to have anything to do with me, NOBODY wants anything to do with me, I'm always one step away from homelessness." / "I don't NEED HELP! I ENJOY BEING MARTYRED"
You also have a wife and a young child. Do they enjoy it?
Does your enjoyment outweigh your responsibility to them?
That sounds like the priority of an addict or alcoholic.
Put together with your ranting, and your losing track of your own positions or subjects, and I have to wonder, Ron, are you chemically impaired when you get on to post?
If so, it's not helping you.
If it's that or a different kind of problem, then do something about it. Call 211.
Because if you're like this to your family, I have every sympathy for them.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "The number of Stalin famine deaths is more uncertain, but it is most likely between 2 and 6 million, and that's all USSR during 1932. That's it. There's nothing else. Everything else is STUPID LYING...."
So you're saying the famine was only in 1932, not in 1933? Yeah, earlier you said:
"The Famine in the USSR in 1932 was accompanied by food insecurity relief efforts which mitigated the death toll, and it was brief, as the 1933 harvest was abundant. The famine year...."
The famine year, singular. So we're only supposed to look at that one year, 1932, because that was the only famine year, and by 1933 everything was fine, right?
Except I've already quoted Gorbachev to you, so you know better:
"In that terrible year [in 1933] nearly half the population of my native village, Privolnoye, starved to death, including two sisters and one brother of my father."And Viacheslav Chornovil, who wrote to Gorbachev:
"In one year—1933—my people lost more than throughout all of World War II, which ravaged our land."Gorbachev is half Ukrainian. He knew the truth of it.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "But given the acceptance of the famine in Khruschev times...."
Why should I take your pretensions to accuracy seriously? You can't be bothered to get so much as that man's name right even after I've spelled it out for you.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou IDIOT! spelling flames? I'll spell it however I goddamn want to. U KANT DIMNISH MY OTHORITEY, BECAUSE I HAV NUN, HOW MENI TIYMS DO AYE NEED TO TEL U? When there is a dispute with cuss-words, people VERIFY THE CLAIMS indepenently by looking at data. Mine are TRUE. Yours are DONKEY POO.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "spelling flames?"
If you're spelling "sh" as "s", you're also mispronouncing the name.
(In a Biblical incident involving "shibboleth", this error got a lot of men killed.)
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "You simply cannot trust anyone on this, because THEY ALL LIE THROUGH THEIR TEETH...."
Except, of course, you and the Holocaust-denier equivalents you choose to cite.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYOU ARE THE HOLOCAUST DENIER HERE, ASSHEAD. ALL PROPER HISTORIANS WITH ACCESS TO ACCURATE DATA KNOW THE TRUTH.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "I don't know what it was exactly, because I can't trust the writing of anyone on this, because it is corrupted by propaganda...."
Just as long as it wasn't the big numbers you don't want to believe, like "six million Jews killed in death camps" -- a couple of thousand dead from dysentery or typhus, perhaps, okay....
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreSix million Jews were not killed, four and a half to five million Jews were killed, and a couple of hundred thousand died from typhus in addition. These are the Jewish organization estimates from 1945, these are the numbers you find from population census figures, and this is what is consistent with the deportation records and testimonies. The general rule is that the closer you get to the events, the better the estimates become. The Soviet famine figures and the Soviet camp deaths were estimated many decades, before and after the archives opened, and the stories were always consistent, until, in the 1990s, in a spate of popular books, SUDDENLY THEY BALLOON TO 20 MILLION, THEN 60 MILLION!!
WHAT KIND OF MORONS DO YOU TAKE PEOPLE FOR? THE BIG NUMBERS FOR THE SOVIET UNION ARE MENTALLY RETARDED MADE UP LIES BY WORTHLESS IMPOSTERS WITH A POLITICAL AGENDA, LIKE YOU. They are stupid, they are impossible, they are academically criminal, they are unworthy of respect.
The way in which these numbers are produced and percolate is A DISGUSTING SHAMEFUL STAIN on the modern academy, and it is precisely for this purpose that the internet was made, to CORRECT this lying, as I am doing now, without giving them ANY SHRED OF RESPECT, just tearing them apart mouth to anus, claim by claim, like the Jewish center ripped apart the holocaust deniers.
This is one of the worst ACADEMIC DISEASES in academia today, it is a REPULSIVE SELL OUT of monstrous proportions, and one must not be complicit with it in the least, as it is WORSE THAN HOLOCAUST DENIAL, because unlike holocaust denial, holocaust fabrication is something DECENT STUPID PEOPLE GO ALONG WITH. It is a deliberate distortion of history designed to bury the study of the history of half the world in a mountain of bullcrap.
This is also why holocaust denial must never be made criminal, as any restrictions on speech always eventually make it impossible to get at historical truth. The FABRICATION of 20 Stalin MEGADEATHS is actually a great weapon in Neo Nazi propaganda, because they say "See! Look how easy it is to create a genocide out of thin air". Of course, it is not, because there are ASSHOLES LIKE ME contesting it, who will CONTEST IT TO THE GRAVE.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "SIX MILLION JEWS WERE NOT KILLED. FOUR AND A HALF TO FIVE AND A HALF MILLION JEWS WERE KILLED. THAT'S THE ACCURATE FIGURES ALL SERIOUS PEOPLE HAVE KNOWN SINCE 1945."
"were killed". Yeah. Plus those who starved to death or died of dysentery, typhus, or overwork, while in captivity (in train cars or at work camps, not just at death camps) -- which you can leave out to bring the numbers down, or include as prisoner deaths (which they were) to fill in that last ~500,000.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreNONSENSE! The 5 Million figure was determined from DEPORTATION STATISTICS and it is independent of cause of death. It is accurate.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Six million Jews were not killed, four and a half to five million Jews were killed...."
Thank you for no longer "shouting"... but I notice you've deleted a half million Jews.
"... and a couple of hundred thousand died from typhus in addition."
And NO-ONE died from starvation, dysentery, or overwork? Those benevolent Nazis!
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "I DON'T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT YOUR FAMILY. I have a grandfather...."
Well, gee, Ron, you start off like that, and then why should I or any of us give a crap about *your* family? Apathy as well as empathy can go in both directions.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "... and large chunks of murdered family including people who fled under piles of corpses."
¿Que? So they survived to tell the tale of how they fled?
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "I DID NOT GUESS WRONG, ... I GUESSED RIGHT."
Ah, so indeed Weev *was* still in prison or at least at risk of prison, and your verbal simulations of a monkey in a tree throwing excrement were desperately needed to free him or keep him free... somehow, by some contorted chain of causation, wasn't that it?
Except no, later you said that was an error into which you'd been misled by "stupid propagandists", so was it WRONG or RIGHT in this latest rendition of your ever-changing lava-lamp of truth?
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "... it is essentially an ATHEISTIC philosophy, denying the notion of truth."
Interesting, because atheist websites generally debunk post-modernism, along with other kooky ideas like Creationism (aka "Intelligent Design", i.e. anti-Evolution schemes). Atheists don't deny the notion of truth, they tend if anything to have a stricter form of epistemology that rules out wishful ("magical') thinking -- as that's the loose cog in so many belief systems.
Post-modernism is essentially a collection of loose cogs to justify believers in socialism or perhaps even Christianity (Creationists can deny science and logic too!); it's not of much use to people who actually do believe in a logical, fact-based world.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreThere are two different kinds of atheism: scientific atheism and anti-scientific atheism, and they usually comprise two completely disjoint sets of people.
Scientific atheism is the rationalist science folks, who object to supernatural nonsense, and they identify religion with supernatural stuff. These people generally continue to accept the non-supernatural consequences of monotheistic religious thinking without knowing the religious pedigree of these ideas. They accept the equality of humanity, the sanctity of individual life, the abhorrence of slavery, the humanist notions of progress and so on, without associating these with the text of the Bible.
The anti-scientific atheism is aware that these conceptions are due to monotheistic religion, and seeing that the scientific atheists have weakened the supernatural basis of the claims, they then try to substitute other quasi-religious but non-monotheistic claims instead of traditional monotheistic religion. This is the program that Nietzsche started, Heidegger continued, and the post-modernists picked up on. They used it to justify any position which stood in contrast to the religious tradition.
Religion, when you look at it deeply, is not about supernatural nonsense. That's what it claims in its founding texts, but these supernatural stories are ultimately irrelevant to the practice of the faith. The basic notion is instituting superrational decision making, and for monotheistic religions, it is to extend the superrational decisions to all humanity. Superrational decision making looks superficially collectivist, although it is also informed by individual intuitions, and it forms a conception of an all intelligent super-duper mind that is aware of everything everyone does and wants everyone to be good.
This meta property of superrational collectives is what the religions are decorating up with supernatural window-dressing. It has nothing to do with miracles, nor does it have anything to do with science. It is about constructing a consistent all-encompassing superrational ethics.
The science-atheists generally accept the superrational ethics without question, as it is deeply socially embedded already, and react with horror to the abuses in atheist states like the USSR, or the worse abuses in Nietzschian states like Nazi Germany. They do not understand what religion is, and they attack the parts which are worthy of ridicule, the nonsense supernatural stuff. That stuff is just propaganda tacked on to a social system, it is not at all what the system of religions are about.
The Heideggerian atheists understand the purpose of religion and attack it at the base, by replacing the thinking with a self-consistent non-monotheistic conception. This is a comprehending attack, and it is much more credible. The supporters of post-modernism distrust monotheistic religion because they distrust tradition, and that makes sense. But one should understand the monotheistic insight indepedently of tradition, by understanding superrational decision making, and the universal concept of God, without relying on historical texts or made-up miracles. There are enough non-supernatural real miracles, like eliminating slavery, and instituting science, to establish the superrational monotheistic conception on.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "... the equality of humanity, the sanctity of individual life, the abhorrence of slavery, the humanist notions of progress and so on.... ...these conceptions are due to monotheistic religion...."
You have no concept of the history of "humanist notions", do you? Nor, actually, of Judeo-Christian thought, which has held stalwart positions against each of these. You've stood the truth topsy-turvy on its head once again.
The equality of humanity. The Divine Right of Kings. The Curse on Ham and all his descendants, the decided non-equality of everyone other than Noah's family, and of the people already occupying the Holy Land (but soon to be killed off by God's command) when Moses led his Exodus up to its border; the non-equality likewise of non-Christians once Christians took over the Roman Empire, then began slaughtering pagan clergy, and converting pagan populations by fire and sword. Slavery continued, but you contended that, oh, Christians couldn't own fellow Christians! (Such EQUAL humanity! So it was OKAY to own NON-Christians!) Nice, except for the Papal decree that the children of Christian slaves were no longer allowed to seek emancipation at the Emperor's statue on the Capitol Hill in Rome.
The sanctity of human life. See above. Or again consider the Albigensian Crusade, Christians against Christians, that nearly depopulated Southern France and brought an end to the language of the troubadours. (Though, like Cornish, it's studied and you can buy recordings.) That began the Inquisition.
The abhorrence of slavery -- we've been through this already: Christianity and the Bible were the firmest supports of slavery in the 19th century, as thumped heavily by Catholics and Southern Protestants alike.
The humanist notions of progress? According to Christianity, Mankind FELL from perfection into sin, and the whole world has been falling with it ever since, toward the final war at Armageddon and the destruction at world's end when Christ will return to save His faithful from the doom that will take everything else. This is NOT any humanist notion of progress.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "... Heideggerian...."
In this particular context, look at the term Anti-Humanist. I think it might convey your meaning more clearly.
Jeremy Alexander Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI was too flippant about the relationship between rightness and authority. Someone without authority can be right, but that rightness is irrelevant and unknowable to others. Your definition of authority is still too narrow. You cannot be heard if you do not possess some degree of authority over others. By allowing the possibility of you being right, they have surrendered some tiny fraction of their autonomy to you. They have granted you the power to change their minds. That is authority, and a profound form of it.
Your lengthy discussion of epistemology is a fine example of why online forums are not a perfect equalizer. As you demonstrated, participation requires education, and education is much more complex than internet access. It entails not just access to information, but the capacities to locate relevant information, to comprehend that information, to analyze that information, and to communicate your understanding of that information. You have been blessed with these privileges, but they are hardly universal. And again, you still need authority to be heard. Forums are great, but they are only a step in the right direction.
Ron Maimon Jeremy Alexander • 6 years ago see moreWell, I think that kind of statement is not controversial, except inasmuch as it can be read as praise. Thanks, but I mostly just used my potty mouth here, not much more. I'm not asking to change people's minds on authority, I don't have any. I am asking for people to read the debate, and make up their minds after reviewing the issues, after reading related material they feel is relevant, and after hearing all the various arguments, as best they can. Or perhaps not, and then just to leave it alone, and keep a mind as open as they feel appropriate.
It is difficult to evaluate things without knowing basic stuff, but I think you are overestimating the barriers of education today, when you have plentiful online resources. While it is true that in the past, the access to education was limited, with only a few people in universities having access to the best up-to-date literature, now that access at the ordinary undergraduate level is universal, and either today or very soon, with the opening of the scientific literature, it will be completely universal at all levels, even the most cutting edge. Anyone can read anything now., u
Once you have access to literature, education is mostly a matter of being pointed to the right stuff to read and review, to a quick summary in case it is unduly long or arcane, and to the right fora to get answers to the questions that arise when reading it. I think that this barrier is relatively negligible today for anyone under the age of 30, certainly as compared to when I was growing up. Young people can find and read literature very quickly. Once you do this, you can check any claims for yourself, so long as you have enough intellectual honesty to evaluate claims with less and less of a bias.
With this model, expertise becomes widely diffused, and the role of experts shrinks dramatically--- you don't have to look to an expert to be told what to believe, and the public can serve as a check on the experts, in those not so rare cases where the experts are totally wrong and maintain consensus by authority. These are the most dangerous cases.
That doesn't mean everyone in the world can evaluate a proof in algebraic geometry, but it means that someone who has a need to verify such a proof doesn't face an impossible barrier to doing so, and the class of people who have acquired the expertise is not controlled by gate-keepers who only let the right sort of people in.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "... I mostly just used my potty mouth here...."
With a strong admixture of forkèd tongue.
"... you can check any claims for yourself...."
Although you have memorably skipped that step concerning issues here.
Didn't you insist you were "uninterested in learning the facts" ?
"... so long as you have enough intellectual honesty to evaluate claims with less and less of a bias."
And as your postings went on (and on and on and on), you showed your own adherence to bias over fact, well, actually your being uninterested in the facts.
Which makes this thread a wonderful place to point to, for anyone who debates you in future. You're willing to cite and adhere to even a known disinformation campaign as being "100% honest and 100% right", and on the other hand disregard centuries of known recorded history if they conflict with your preferred thesis. You're completely anti-historical, Ron. For you, history is what you WANT it to be, and anyone who disagrees with what you WANT you accuse of being a "liar" and "propagandist" -- in pro-active inversion of the truth.
Jeremy Alexander Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more"Anyone can read anything now"
...if they know how to read.
"Once you do this, you can check any claim"
What you have described here is critical thinking. This is a skill that must be learned, and very possibly can only be learned from others.
"I am asking for people to read the debate, and make up their minds after reviewing the issues"
Why should they do that? Who are you to ask them to do that? Of all the people in the world telling them bullshit, why should they listen to you, especially when you're standing up for this asshole?
Here is your takeaway from this article: Police. Your. Own. When you make the outside world do it, it gets messy. When you do it yourself, the outside world learns to trust you and starts listening to your bullshit.
Ron Maimon Jeremy Alexander • 6 years ago • edited see moreWeev is not "my own", I don't know the guy. I am simply defending open internet discussions. I don't need to do anything to get people to read and exercise critical thinking, it's an automatic product of the internet, because the information is available. It doesn't happen in the previous generation, because they were brought up on mass media.
Jeremy Alexander Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreAmerica has done a good job of impressing individualism on you. You would do well to remember that it's mostly an illusion. You are part of a community and here you have acted to defend both that community and a member of it. Hide behind ideology all you want. It is still a lie, one that I'm sure you tell yourself as well. If you want your life to have any significance, open your eyes and stop lying.
Ron Maimon Jeremy Alexander • 6 years ago • edited see moreHeh. So in America they call you a dirty collectivist, outside they call you a brainwashed individualist. I am not a part of the community under discussion, at least not in any significant way and surely not for 20 years. My political collectivist association is with the community of physicists, which also kicked me out, I should add, so I don't really have an affiliation with anything anymore.
I defend these trolls because I was followed the original trolling usenet group in my youth, and I see the purpose and value of this group. They helped make sure that polite consensus would be jostled every once in a while, to make enough chaos for new things to be able to form. This activity is very psychologically unsettling, and it feels like violence, but there is no real threat to people. Still, in response to the feeling of violent ideas, there is real censorship being instituted on various discussion forums, and this censorship immediately removes their potential for accurate peer review.
I don't claim that an individual must shed all allegiances, rather that the evaluation of truth and falsehood regarding matters of fact should be made completely indepedently of those allegiances, by rejecting them temporarily and adopting new ones in the middle of the evaluation. So you should evaluate the holocaust in the identity of a Jew and as a Neo-Nazi, and then you will get a full picture, for example, as Pressac carefully did. That's not the same thing as averaging the numbers published by Neo Nazis and Jews. Only one of those numbers is at all close to the truth, the truth is not an average of every opinion, but it doesn't hurt to examine from all perspectives, including heinous and evil ones.
This can be done if you thoroughly train yourself at being rude and reject the imposition of the gods on your mind. This is what trolls do--- they are rejecting the imposition of the gods that have a hold on their mind, and the gods then start howling and screaming. These gods don't need to worry so much.
Jeremy Alexander Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreAll you've done is create a new god, at whose altar you're willing to sacrifice participation for purity. Again you're using a very narrow definition, this time of community. Active membership is secondary. Values are primary. You are very much a member of the community, as your actions have demonstrated. And I'm an American too. I'm just not naïve enough to believe that all my thoughts could ever possibly be my own.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "My political collectivist association is with the community of physicists, which also kicked me out, I should add...."
Quelle surprise! And this is the one group of people you declared intellectually honest, no others need apply? Yes, now I can see why they might have.
Raven Jeremy Alexander • 6 years ago see moreJeremy Alexander: "The ethics of the internet are going to be decided democratically."
Maybe, maybe not. If the GOP even edges the mid-terms, ditto and gets the White House too in 2016, with ALEC and the Heritage Foundation holding ready a truckload of bills to enact, well... they've been muttering about "one-party government" and "theonomy" for a long time now, and they finally have a majority of Supreme Court Justices unlikely to block them.
Oliver Pine Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreSo how old is the baby now Ron? 5? it's Ithaca right?
Ron Maimon Oliver Pine • 6 years ago see moreYeah 5. Dude, you really should be following the conversation. I feel as threatened by you as I do from the lion roaring in the zoo.
Oliver Pine Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreMoral ambiguity is fun. I guess you are right. Being right is all that is important to you isn't it. You might want to remember that enough people in this country cross that line to have like 5 channels of nonstop murder investigation shows. Sometimes you can't judge whats on the other side of the screen based upon your prior experience with people.
Ron Maimon Oliver Pine • 6 years ago see moreSometimes you can't, but in this case I CAN, and I don't LIKE to be right, I just AM right, and a long enough troll makes it obvious to everyone, even if there is a 20 to 1 imbalance in the perception at the beginning. This is what the internet is for, to correct 20 to 1 imbalances in the wrong direction, and it only works when there is the freedom to insult in both directions (the freedom to insult from the 20 to the 1 is automatic).
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more"... the constant cogent heckling criticism of the mainstream press by the alternative press online, a heckling which is now winning, is the subtext in any such discussion."
If I were to attempt a list of such sites here, I'd exceed space limits, but for just one "constant cogent heckling critic" --
The Daily Howler and its archive site
Freddy Kruger Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreyou are absolutely right! i had lots of those trolls. i love the mute button. it like real ignoring. i too am for open free web! suits just fund the lawyers. criminal trespass is where i draw in line in person!
Fairportfan Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWow. What universe do you live in?
Are you sure you're not the troll i've finally given up on on comments about a review of a book about Ada Lovelace?
Ron Maimon Fairportfan • 6 years ago • edited see moreI live in the internet universe. I haven't commented on the Ada Lovelace, but if you are arguing with someone who sounds like me, I'd suggest you pay close attention to what that person has to say.
Fairportfan Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWow. So you're saying that, according to you, what you say is worth listening to?
Care to evince examples of people who also say that that aren't sock puppets or fellow misogynist trolls?
Also:
I live in the internet universe
Try living in the real world outside you mom's basement, or whatever wretched hive of bile and misogyny you currently infest...
Raven Fairportfan • 6 years ago see moreMos Eisley? "A more wretched hive of bile and misogyny you will never see."
Ron Maimon Fairportfan • 6 years ago • edited see moreWhat I say is worth listening to, otherwise I wouldn't waste my time saying it. There are no other examples of folks who say this preceding sentence, because people generally feel the need to maintain their authority, and such a sentence wrecks your authority immediately. I don't care, because I do not have or seek authority, because authority is of negative value online.
I am with my wife and daughter, but it has become a wretched hive of bile recently, although not so much misogyny. I don't think I have enough misogyny in me, as I have not had any special problem with female authorities, as opposed to male authorities. I despise them equally.
Fairportfan Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWow. Talk about circular "logic" - by saying that anything you say ex cathedra is worth listening to, you are, whether you realise it or not, still arguing from authority, setting yourself up as the only authority that can judge what you're saying.
It's like Rand Paul setting up his own ophthalmology board and awarding himself a board certification.
You have actually dropped a few credibility points lower with a statement like that - something i wouldn't have believed was possible.
Ron Maimon Fairportfan • 6 years ago • edited see moreYeah, yeah, continue to think that, bird-brain. It's not logic, circular or otherwise, it is rhetoric. And this rhetoric I am using to DEMOLISH my own authority, because AUTHORITY IS NOT NECESSARY.
Get this through your skull: there IS NO AUTHORITY THAT CAN JUDGE ANYTHING. Not what I am saying, not what you are saying, nothing. Board certifications are worthless, and online they are doubly worthless. Credentials are toilet paper. Authority is dead, and we have killed it. You need to judge everything independently.
I prefer talking to folks who speak through their mouth and not their anus, as the halitosis is more bearable.
Fairportfan Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRight. You are speaking ex cathedra and telling us what to believe (or not believe).
Knew a guy once who had a t-shirt that said "Question Authority - Ask Me Anything". That's what you're saying.
(BTW - Chanticleer - dead these ten years or so - was a "libertarian" who loved to tell people what they thought for themselves. Like you, judging bu your comments.)
Ron Maimon Fairportfan • 6 years ago • edited see moreI am telling you, you don't have to listen. I have no authority. I am only accepted to the degree to which what I say is correct. I can speak in whatever tone I want, it makes no difference. That's what online discussions are like.
Fairportfan Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWell, since you have no authority, i'll tell you - on whatever authority i have - that you are wrong and have no idea what you're talking about.
Since we've both reached that conclusion, don't bother to reply again.
Ron Maimon Fairportfan • 6 years ago • edited see moreYOU HAVE NO AUTHORITY! You're just the same as me, you see. That's the nice thing about the internet. You have to do more than assert, you have to make an argument. Since you haven't done so, I will tell you that your belligerence is a good start, nice going, but I encourage you to come back with a more substantive argument than "I say so".
You can tell me not to reply, but since you have no authority, I am not going to listen to you.
Ron Maimon Fairportfan • 6 years ago • edited see moreI have NO AUTHORITY! I can speak however I want, but best if everyone is rude. Then it's up to you to think about it. When I am right, you learned something. When I am wrong, correct me, and then I learned something. The essence is real, abrasive intellectual conflict, free of imposition, until total and complete agreement is reached.
adam Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreYou are willfully misconstruing "free internet for all" with "keeping unacceptable antisocial behavior free from repercussions".
What you are seeing as "coordinated tag team comments" is actually "adults, independently reasserting socially acceptable behavior".Ron Maimon adam • 6 years ago • edited see moreYes, it's the coordinated tag team of mentally retarded adults I am talking about.
Josh M Cuttlefish • 6 years ago see moreThat's right, and we are going to win. It's simply inevitable. There's too many of us and we are smarter than you are.
Raven Cuttlefish • 6 years ago see moreSociopathy does not fall into the category of "insanity" -- which is a legal, not a medical, term, meaning the inability to conform one's actions to the law ("even if a policeman were standing there", as it's been said), whether through inability to tell the difference between right and wrong, or inability to control oneself.
Sociopaths are perfectly able to control themselves while a policeman is there, convincingly claim that the victim or witness is worrying needlessly (as Jeffrey Dahmer so persuaded two officers about one frightened and bleeding Thai boy whose brain he'd already damaged, despite the contrary pleas of several black neighbor ladies), and wait until the police leave to kill their victim (as Dahmer then did).
The good news is that therefore, a diagnosis of sociopathy (or "antisocial personality disorder", in DSM-IV's clunky phrase) will not justify a verdict of "not guilty by reason of insanity."
Miranda Ghrist Raven • 6 years ago see moreI think you're confusing the blatant racism reflected in how the police mishandled that nasty incident with Dahmer (the police didn't understand the difference between right and wrong) with the focus of this article. Kathy's article exhibits a disturbing lack of locus, and a narcissistic paranoia as extreme as the jackwits she's complaining about.
When you become a public figure dealing with loonies comes with the job. It can be stressful, but if you're not in immediate physical danger and you deal with the obnoxious well it will work in your favor. When you demand attention, you'll get it but not always in the "Koolaid drinker" form of unquestioning acquiescence.You also leave me with the impression you confuse the subjective with the objective when it comes to how to interpret either a poorly thought out article, or copypasta on legal definitions. You're reaching your own little Koolaid Point.
Try reading Attorney For The Damned, by Dennis Woychuk. It makes an excellent point in how nobody should be considered not guilty via insanity, and at the same time regards any form repetitive harmful behaviors over an extended time period as insane. He also points out that prisoners prefer normal prisons over mental hospitals.
And there's a reason I say harmful, and not 'criminal'. It's because it's a crime to not wear a veil in some countries, but not a crime in others. At the same time it's wrong to kick a puppy no matter where you live.Now go back to collecting cats, and be nice to them or they may scratch up your furniture.
Raven Miranda Ghrist • 6 years ago • edited see more"Try reading Attorney For The Damned, by Dennis Woychuk. It makes an excellent point in how nobody should be considered not guilty via insanity,..."
According to the summary on Amazon, "because the public thinks it a scam". Well, public opinion had nothing to do with creating the M'Naghten rules or the later insanity defense.
"... and at the same time regards any form repetitive harmful behaviors over an extended time period as insane."
Look up "perseveration" and "stereotypy" (also "tweaking" as in meth/amphetamine user behavior) -- these can occur with or without insanity (for instance in autistic children), without ever coming near an asylum, prison, or court.
Miranda Ghrist Raven • 6 years ago see moreEither this is a desperate attempt at misdirection disguised as a child leaning on google for shallow trivia in lieu of in depth knowledge, or everything I said was beyond you. Stereotypy and perseveration are just ways of increasing the noise to signal ratio mentally for organizational purposes in people with a neurological malfunction and drug use is drug use. All have nothing to do with insanity pleas or this article. You also can't debate a book you never read.
Your need to reply to everything anyone posts here is a form of repetitive behavior, harmless, but also lacking in comprehension of context. Please play again.Raven Miranda Ghrist • 6 years ago see more"Stereotypy and perseveration... and drug use... have nothing to do with insanity pleas or this article."
That was *my* point: "... these can occur with or without insanity (for instance in autistic children), without ever coming near an asylum, prison, or court."
This was in reply to your linkage of "any form repetitive harmful behaviors" to "an extended time period as insane."
Reprise:
People can have "repetitive harmful behaviors" without any "time period as insane" at all.Miranda Ghrist Raven • 6 years ago see moreI understand, you really are missing the point. There is no reprise, only your incomprehension of what I'm saying.
Raven Miranda Ghrist • 6 years ago see moreYou know, a productive thing to do when your point hasn't been clear to someone else would be to try rephrasing or explaining it, as I did with my reprise. That would be part of a communication process. But if you don't actually want to communicate, then have a nice day.
Miranda Ghrist Raven • 6 years ago see moreYou didn't rephrase anything, you simply sh*tpost a response to everything I say. And I know danged well you have no interest in a productive discussion on anything, you're just here to collect cats. :)
adam Miranda Ghrist • 6 years ago see moreBump to the idea that there should be no such thing an insanity plea. If the idea behind prison is to remove the criminal from society, then the "insane" criminal needs to be all the more urgently removed from society.
Raven adam • 6 years ago see moreAdam, an NGRI (not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity) verdict, unless it was *temporary* insanity, generally results in committal to a state mental hospital rather than a prison, so the defendant receives treatment for the mental condition, but still is removed from society... and from a general population of prisoners, who might abuse (or be harmed by) him/her.
Ron Maimon Synkretic • 6 years ago • edited see moreI DON'T CONDONE DOXXING! I NEVER DID. IT IS A BAD THING TO DO. I SAID THIS TWENTY TIMES.
Doxxing has nothing to do with what you call "verbal abuse". The accusation of verbal abuse can come (and has come) for the following actions:
1. Showing someone who thinks they are an expert that their optics solution approximation is incorrect.
2. Pointing out that the Drude model of electron flow is obsolete.
3. Explaining that Neitzsche was a racist writer.
4. Explaining the abiogenic theory of petroleum formation.
5. Describing the S-matrix theory of hadronic processes.etc. etc. Although these look like safe topics, they are all hotly disputed, and taking the wrong side, an arguing forcefully against the other side brings up accusations of "trolling", "dishonesty", "crackpottery", "creating bad vibes" and finally "verbal abuse" in this order, leading to censorship of these scientific topics, and leading to mistakes in the peer review process online.
The reason is simply POWER. Criticism from powerless to the powerful is simply always percieved as rude when it does not seek compromise, while criticism the other way is never percieved as rude, period. This imbalance is compensated by rude speech online, i.e. by trolling.
This is exactly what is happening in this case too. The powerless person is this weev fellow, the powerful person is his opponent who wrote the article, and the mud she is throwing at him sticks, which includes accusations of threats of rape, threats of murder, when all that she has grounds to suspect him of is the doxxing. Doxxing is NOT threat of rape or murder.
My position is that you can't censor online discussions period. Any attempt to do so must therefore show some sort of real world danger, and this person is claiming such a danger. I dispute this claim.
I agree that doxxing is a reprehensible thing, she should sue. She should press charges. But she didn't. Instead she is proposing to censor online discussions. This is not about the doxxing anymore, but about censorship.
Further, the fact that doxxing is a terrible thing to do does not mean that you get to do unlimited propaganda against this guy. You don't even know for sure he did it, he has boasted of hacks he didn't do before.
I am afraid of the chilling effect of making this guy a test case, or tearing his reputation apart (more than he has done himself, that is). He is an unpopular jerk, just like the person who attacks the drude model, defends abiogenic petroleum, attacks Nietzsche, points out mistakes in not using optical Fresnel equation approximation methods, and that's ME. I'm acting out of self-interest here. You can't see it, because you don't have enough experience with internet censorship. It is simply never necessary.
She should sue him, prosecute him, ask him to apologize, or leave him alone. This type of thing is simply propaganda.
Question Everything Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see morePsychological attacks, things coming through the mail, people calling others to action to even send 0s & 1s are disgusting, immoral & wrong. These are physical actions. This is not what the internet was spawned to be.
The internet is real. What is done on here is done & even without physical action going out of one's way to harm another individuals thoughts, ideas & ability to earn an income as a citizen are crimes that should be dealt with far more harshly than a city kid hustling dime bags.
Josh M Question Everything • 6 years ago see moreWe'll punish evil hypocrites like you especially severely.
Ron Maimon Question Everything • 6 years ago see moreA kid hustling dime-bags is selling a material that, once it enters the brain. goes out of its way to harm another individuals thoughts, ideas, and ability to earn an income more than any internet spawned fear. Nevertheless I agree with you, neither should be dealt with harshly, both should be a slap on the wrist from the state, and a lawsuit from the victim.
Synkretic Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreThanks for taking the time to write such a thorough and informative response. As I previously admitted, internet censorship is out of my wheelhouse. Don't know who weez is or any other details of this story. But I am a born contrarian, and as already stated, I fully support attacking the idea itself. Not to be dense, but I still don't get the part about scaring people into silence. For me (just for me. Moi.), there is a pretty simple litmus test: if I wouldn't make the exact same comment if the person were standing in front of me, I would think myself cowardly and pathetic for hiding behind my emboldened anonymity.
Maybe I am pretty old school, but I believe that all freedoms come with associated responsibilities.
Ron Maimon Synkretic • 6 years ago see moreI make the same comments face to face, trust me, and I have lost jobs, positions, and prestige from heckling powerful people to their face. It is more important than my material well being to do this, as it is the essence of scientific honesty, and in the past decade scientific honesty has taken a beating.
xiaozi Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreThen you have real problems. The obsessiveness is obvious. Perhaps there are other things.
Ron Maimon xiaozi • 6 years ago • edited see moreOther people can deal with other things. I have chosen to deal with this one. Since I don't see ten other me's posting here, I'm probably the only one, so I must write ten times as much to pick up the slack. Since the voting is not yet in my favor, I realize I am not preaching to the choir, that other people are still stupid about this, unfortunately, so I must be more insulting.
erik novak Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreActually she explicitly and categorically rejects censoring of online discussions. I guess you didn't actually read the whole article.
Also, nowhere in the article did she accuse him of threatening her with murder, though I'd consider the posting a picture of myself dismembered, with my address attached, as a threat. What rational personal wouldn't and if it's not a threat, what is it meant to be?
Also, she explains she only wrote the article because he became powerful...receiving awards, published in multiple tech venues, speaking at conferences. How can you say he's the helpless one. She also only sticks to verifiable facts - the NYT article, his own tweets, when reaching her conclusions.
Ron Maimon erik novak • 6 years ago see more"She explicitly and categorically rejects censoring of online discussions" that's a good one. This lady is the QUEEN OF CENSORSHIP, and she's lying about that too..
Ron Maimon Ash • 6 years ago see moreI don't need any more proof than she does, but look around in the comments here. It is also obvious from her lying malicious slanderous post.
Miranda Ghrist Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreThis article is something worse than propaganda, it's a form of projection, othering and labeling indicative of an underdeveloped sense of cognitive self-awareness. Being 'too smart' has become trolling to the Here Comes Honey Boo-boo crowd.
Ash Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWhat should he do? Can you link me to a similar amount of advice for him?
Josh M Synkretic • 6 years ago see moreVerbal abuse is sometimes necessary against people that refuse to stop harming others...or would you rather trolls decided to start killing people that infringe on other's rights of free speech?
Josh M Cuttlefish • 6 years ago see moreThe point is, if you want to infringe on our rights to speak our minds on an open forum, we'll ruin your life, do you understand? We are completely within our power to do this.
A_citizen_127 Josh M • 6 years ago see moreJosh M, you're funny. You make a good point with an intersting technique. I agree with you that trolls (like what you're pretending to be) are a lower form of life, usually immature losers who act out in the only way they can.
That said, you should have some sympathy. When they look at their own lives, it's usually pretty bleak and pathetic. Doesn't justify their venom, of course, but eventually most will grow out of it.
Then, if they have any human value, they'll spend a lifetime regretting their actions. That is enough.
Ron Maimon Josh M • 6 years ago see moreNobody wants to infringe on your rights, I am trying to protect your rights. Doxxing is reprehensible and psychologically threatening, but ultimately the damage was purely psychological, and can be dealt with by lawsuits and shaming. It is not sufficient reason for censorship measures.
Synkretic Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon, you seem like you are very smart and quite capable of doing intense research. It may not be an area of interest for you, but I wager that after 30 minutes or less of digging in PubMed, you might have a different take on damage that is "purely psychological". Almost makes it sound like 2nd-tier damage. Chronic exposure to cortisol, the stress hormone, can cause permanent changes in brain function. The downstream hormonal cascade can alter: blood pressure, fluid balance, immune response, pain perception, fertility, etc. As you can see, it extends well beyond the psyche. Is this really what we want to do to one another? Is causing all of that physiological damage not sufficient enough reason to self-censor at least the threats of violence? Have we become that narcissistic?
Do we honestly want an "ISIS of the Internet" where people are terrified and terrorized into silent submission? I hope not.
Ash Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more'purely psychological' suggest you are ignoring what the poster just said:
"As you can see, it extends well beyond the psyche."
So, some disagreement there.
Ron Maimon Ash • 6 years ago see moreThat's just the psyche. The psyche isn't negligible. But it isn't RAPE or MURDER nor is it a credible threat of RAPE or MURDER.
Ash Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more"But it extends BEYOND THE PSYCHE" me, quoting synkretic
"that's just the psyche" - Ron
Emphasis aded for the hard of reading.
Ash Josh M • 6 years ago see moreIt's sad that you demand fearful obeisance to the principles of freedom you advocate, apparently without irony.
To crush those who hold opposing views to your own in the name of freedom of speech is a nonsense, and you know that. I'm sure you won't admit it, but it cannot have escaped you.
Ron Maimon Josh M • 6 years ago • edited see moreWHOA, WHOA, .... not sane anymore ! I just lost it. You guys are right. These crap people are not worth explaining this shit to.
godihatdisqus Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moredefine credible. in a world of total anonymity how do you distinguish between real threats and fake ones. the better question is: why would anyone make fake threats?
Ron Maimon godihatdisqus • 6 years ago see moreNo one should make fake threats, it is reprehensible. But the person making fake threats should also not be conflated with the person making real ones who is doing something much much worse.
godihatdisqus Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moredo you not understand the question? how do you tell the difference?
If someone made a real threat, but hadn't yet acted, how would you know it was real?
I have a rule of thumb I like to use regarding trolling: would you tell your mother, family, and boss what you were doing? if the answer is no, stop posting.
The way you know the truth about people's intent and purpose is whether they have the balls to post under their own name. They have no problem tormenting people whose identity is out there, but they're too cowardly to live their lives in the open. See my rule of thumb above.
Ron Maimon godihatdisqus • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou tell the difference by means and motive. That a particular person is too stupid to know that a flamewar is not a motive, and an address is not means is not my problem, but hers.
Mukt Josh M • 6 years ago see moreIf they kill, they are murderers in addition to being trolls... and in addition to being human.
Synkretic Josh M • 6 years ago see moreYour post doesn't make much sense. Maybe you can try again...
FYI. Free speech does not mean speech without limitation, responsibility, or consequence.Josh M Synkretic • 6 years ago see moreYou're right, and the consequences of you being in favor of harming others over opinions is that I'm completely justified in slitting your throat because your opinions upset me. Eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Forgiveness? Only to those who are actually sorry.
Synkretic Josh M • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou can re-read my post. I don't recall suggesting anyone harm anyone. What I am against is people using such vile and violent language toward people, such as what you've demonstrated here and in other posts. As I said, attack the IDEA not the PERSON. Why take the easy way out and talk about slitting my throat instead of providing more information to bolster your point of view? I stated upfront I'm not current on internet censorship issues.
Josh, if you'd like, I would be glad to call your local police to ask them to stop by for a quick mental health check. Your comments are irrational, illogical, and bizarre. I'm sure your mom would be pretty worried about you were she to read them. I am very sorry for whatever has happened in your life that left you thinking it is normal or okay to interact with others the way you have. There is help out there.
Josh M Synkretic • 6 years ago see moreHypocrite. Stopping verbal "abuse" to justify abusing our rights? DIE.
Synkretic Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreNot sure if you are keeping track, but the guy you now think IS the solution is the same guy you thought was nuts based on one of his previous posts. Are you really saying people who seem somewhat unstable are the solution? I must have missed part of your logic flow in between posts.
I have read a lot of your comments, and while I may not agree with you on various points, you do present cogent arguments. It is hard to understand how/why someone like you would want to support someone like that so unequivocally. Such an association seems that it would only serve to diminish your credibility and your cause.
FYI. I don't have an agenda here. Just trying to learn about the issue.
Ron Maimon Synkretic • 6 years ago • edited see moreHe's trolling, he's been trolling the whole discussion. It's hopeless to explain why trolling is required to people who know nothing about trolling. The only thing you can do is just to keep on trolling, and hope they get it.
Why is it hard to explain trolling? Because people just don't usually see the authority structures that trolls are subverting by direct rude opposition, as these authority structures are invisible until you either have a old bad idea or a good new idea, at either of which points you feel them harshly pushing back at you.
If all you've had are bad old ideas, the pushing back seems like a great thing, it's a lot of heckling and abuse that serves to put you back on track. It's only when you have a good new ideas that you see that the heckling doesn't care about right and wrong at all, rather only about authority, and it is equally used to silence new folks who are right as new folks who are wrong.
The internet can overcome this, by merely providing a space for people to explain themselves, and to counteract the authority of received wisdom. The problem is that you get a mass of ignorant people coming at you like a tidal wave, each of them trying to defend the established orthodoxy. So you need to get rid of their authority, by harsh language, by calling them names, so that they lose that mantle of authority they get from parrotting something you already heard before.
Trolling is there to protect important good new ideas, unpopular ideas, from authority. That's its only purpose. But how can you explain this here? It's next to impossible. So I suppose all you can do is just provide trolling examples and hope it sinks in.
Synkretic Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreI have dealt with a level of orthodoxy in my own family that makes me very sensitive to grossly imbalanced power struggles and what is required to get somebody to expand his world view. It isn't easy, and polite, obsequious language often doesn't work with such people. I get that. However, in all of my verbal struggles, threats of violence never occurred to me as a method that would further my cause. I somehow knew that if I came across as "crazy" then all of my hard work would be for naught. Why give anyone a reason to dismiss you so easily? I guess all I am saying is that your goals seem like they would be better served not by staying away from the heated language but only from the threats of violence. That's all. I won't pester you with any more requests to explain a concept I am obviously having a hard time grasping. Good luck!
Ron Maimon Synkretic • 6 years ago • edited see moreYes, the threats of violence are completely counterproductive, but this is simply not what was going on. The threat of violence is being invented by the author to give a pretext argue against heated language in general, saying that the "feeling of violence" which is the response to impolite language and forceful disagreement. That always feels like violence, and this is what the battle against internet trolling is trying to silence.
There was a threat of violence implied by doxxing, and this is why doxxing is not useful or productive. But it isn't really a real world threat of violence either, it is just something that hackers think will help when they are young and stupid. They know that an internet unsavvy person will be scared to death by this stuff, without any real signifcant danger.
Ron Maimon Josh M • 6 years ago • edited see moreWOISE, WOISE. ACH. PUTZ GOYYIM IS TWOIYING TO TAICHE BUBBE'S INTERNET AWAY.
Ash Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreCan you detail how you came to know that he posed no serious credible threat?
I'm sure you're right, and he's only scary to people who are frightened by nazi hackers who threaten to rape you.
Ron Maimon Ash • 6 years ago see moreThe biggest clue was that if he had actually followed her, stalked her, or threatened her, she would have SAID SO in the article, instead of going on a long rambling diatribe about internet trolls. What is not said is as important as what is said.
Actually, to tell the truth, I was just guessing. I don't know anything about this. So I asked myself "what could have possibly happened to lead to this situation". And then I made assumptions, and stuck with them. This is how trolls behave.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Actually, to tell the truth, I was just guessing. I don't know anything about this. ... And then I made assumptions, and stuck with them."
What an epistemology.
"This is how trolls behave."
I don't doubt it. You're such a sterling example of the breed.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreYes I am, I was one of the early ones. Also, by trolling here, I am demonstrating why trolls are necessary. We are needed to deflate powerful gasbags and remove authority from discussions.
Ash Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreMaking assumptions and sticking with them is the opposite of rational. There is no intellectual rigour whatsoever in that approach.
Ron Maimon Ash • 6 years ago see moreI didn't claim it was rigorous, I claimed I was right. I was pulling it out of my ass, I admit, but I was right, because I have an experienced ass.
adam Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreThe eternal cop out of bullies when called on their bullying: "I was just joking."
Ron Maimon adam • 6 years ago see moreHe wasn't joking, it wasn't a joke. But he just wasn't really posing a threat to her either! Bullying on the internet, when it isn't threats, consists of someone expicitly and forcefully showing you that you are wrong.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreNo, Ron. For instance, *I* have shown *you*, explicitly and forcefully, that you were wrong, without bullying you at all.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou have only shown that you don't know how to read and evaluate historical material dispassionately.
But to the extent that you claim I made a mistake, it looks like bullying to anyone who disagrees with you, it's just that YOU don't see it as bullying.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "You have only shown that you don't know how to read and evaluate historical materially dispassionately."
Is there a noun in that sentence? ("You" is a pronoun.)
Merely claiming that you erred is not bullying.
T M Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreYour opinion here is so stupid as to be ridiculous. I hope you have more brain power than this. Having your personal information published online is a credible threat, you brainless, douchemongrel.
Ron Maimon T M • 6 years ago • edited see moreSeems that way when you read the article and start reading the comments, doesn't it? Let's see if it still seems that way when you're done reading the comments.
It's a threat of sorts, it's true. It's just really not a very credible one. It is what it is, a minor threat deserving very little attention, some stern disapproval, and no change in policy.
Guest Melissa Anelli • 6 years ago • edited see moreSo you spent working class tax dollars calling the FBI on someone who lives in new zealand.
Because they sent you a koo koo email?How did she get your email?
How did she find you and your families home adresses?
(Theres a reason I dont use my Christian name in forums or put pictures of myself and my children on the internet.)
Is that what my tax dollars are for?
To protect careless celebrities who make their information known to the crazy public?"I am not famous."
Thats cute.
I heard you wrote 5 books about harry potter and have a forum dedicated to your work. How did this person become fixated on little ole working class you.
I dont have problems like that.Never famous enough I'm sure.
Melissa Anelli Guest • 6 years ago see moreThank you so much for proving every point I have ever made about the necessity of greater civility online.
Melissa Anelli Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI am happy to be complicit in a society where using your voice to commit a crime is criminal.
Ron Maimon Melissa Anelli • 6 years ago • edited see moreI am not happy with this at all. Requiring civility is simply a sell-out, and a complete perversion of what the internet is. Being uncivil is not a crime, it is a sacrament, and the conflating of incivility with crimes is the central problem with discussions of internet behavior.
The rudeness on the internet is a feature, it is not a bug. It is the only feature that makes it worthwhile. Before the internet, only professional physicists were this rude to each other in discussion.
Ron Maimon Melissa Anelli • 6 years ago see moreI am not, and you shouldn't be either. Shame on you.
Stephen Diamond Melissa Anelli • 6 years ago see moreWith all due sympathy, I think you're overreacting to a threat that has zero likelihood of being executed. In the meantime, you're helping create an atmosphere where trolls are treated as stalkers and anyone expressing harsh disagreement as troll.
Melissa Anelli Stephen Diamond • 6 years ago • edited see moreI mean this sincerely: I hope the absolute falsity of your statement and callousness of your sentiment is never proven to you the only way it sounds like it could be (certainly compassion is out of the question): by this happening to you
Would you like to hear more about the bus she took past my house (while I was blessedly and coincidentally out of the country)? The kewpie doll and card she sent my infant nephew with an admonition to enjoy his parents while he could? The tattoos she has on her upper thigh representing me pictorially? The stories she has written, the bombarding f friends and family? And this and much more not including the near daily threats of rape and murder?
It is not only about a physical threat, though that cannot be discarded. This is about the absolutely incontrovertible fact that this is unacceptable abuse by any measure and has criminal effects equal to it.
May you never discover how inescapably wrong you are and how cruel it is to suggest a victim is "overreacting." May you never ever have reason to doubt yourself.
Ron Maimon Melissa Anelli • 6 years ago see moreYour personal story is emotional, and while it might serve a cathartic purpose for you in dealing with a criminal threat, it also serves a propaganda purpose here, in tugging at the heartstrings of the reader to support internet censorship.
If you are telling the truth, I'm sorry for your experience, and I hope you take it to the proper place which is the criminal justice system, not here. If you are lying, I am sorry you exist. In either case, there is no relation between this criminal stalking and what is discussed in the article, which is online speech.
Melissa Anelli Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreAh, the "women are emotional" response. Such cloud cover for misogyny, victim blaming, and nothing else. There was no mention of how I feel in the above post. There were a lot of mentions of facts. You can google it all f yu don't the veracity; you can read the press reports yourself. I truly hope you find a way to stop figuring out the best way you can be mean to people online while keeping a thin enough veneer of civility to avoid getting called out for it. I've seen this too much in 15 years writing on the Net.
I've not mentioned censorship once. I am a journalist by vocation and deeply against it. I call for a solution, not censorship. Free speech doesnt include using your speech to abuse, harass, and intimidate.
If calling for increased civity, and end to abuse, and recognition of these crimes for what they are - crimes, even if taking place on the Internet - is propaganda, you are fee to call it that. It is also on topic.
It's interesting to find people who would be okay with hateful speech and abuse - as long as it's in the nonsensical boundaries of what they consider on topic.
Ron Maimon Melissa Anelli • 6 years ago • edited see moreI meant your story is emotionally manipulative, not that you are particularly emotional. I don't think you are very emotional, you might be a cold-blooded realist posting heart-rending personal stories of persecution to make deliberate propaganda.
I call for no solution to this problem, as I don't see a problem in her case. I see an invented problem. In your case, there might be a problem, but it is not the same problem, and it might be a made up problem.
On the off chance that you seriously are a journalist telling the truth, you should think a little about what makes online discussions more radical than journalism in the New York TImes. You should consider that the New York Times published out and out propaganda on yellowcake, WMDs, not to mention the granddaddy of lies, the mentally retarded 9/11 official story.
Why did these lies have such a hard time online, when in the media they were dominant? It's because of trolls continuously attacking them without granting them authority, by mocking. This is scary to established power, so they always try to shut it up. It must not be shut up, it must be done doubly hard.
This is the real problem, and trolling is the solution. The solution to trolling is more trolling, and even more, until the entire corrupt edifices of modern journalism is replaced by something which cusses a whole lot more, and cares a whole lot more about accuracy.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreYou didn't bother reading the article she linked, did you?
It had a photo of her.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreI didn't bother reading it. I accept that she is likely genuine now. Sorry about being suspicious, but you must understand, people have been lying in this thread, for example, a fellow below who pretended to be a lawyer in possession of the doxx (he isn't). Trolling is the way to get at truth quickly, and I got at the truth--- you aren't making stuff up.
But you are still barking up the wrong tree. Trolling is important, and stalking is a crime, and the two are completely opposite modes of behavior.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Trolling is important, and stalking is a crime, and the two are completely opposite modes of behavior."
When weev "went RW [Real World] on" Sierra by posting her offline info -- home address, SSN, incentive to harass -- so that she and her children became targets of death threats and those photos, that crossed the line.
"Trolling" stays within the bounds of the forum, and doesn't go RW, doesn't out people's homes and jobs, hurting their offline lives.
Online life vs. offline life has been a bright line forever. Weev stomped right over it. You're defending his doing that.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreI'm not defending him for posting online info. You are absolutely right, it crossed the line to real-world, it was wrong, it was unethical, it was completely unjustifiable. I agree, I never wavered.
What it was NOT is attempted rape or attempted murder. It just was what it was, an unethical thing which is BAD. NOT AS BAD as rape, murder, credible threat of murder, or credible threat of rape. Just bad in a different, lesser, but still bad, way.
But this has nothing to do with trolling, which is what is being attacked in the article. Trolling is GOOD.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreIt was inciting others to the deed.
Like Charles Manson not killing anyone himself, his hands stayed clean, but inciting his "family" members to go out and kill.
And you'll notice he was held legally responsible for the effect of his "words, mere words"; Freedom of Speech didn't cover them.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreIt was only inciting in the mind of the internet unsavvy victim, not in the mind of anyone else, not in weev's mind, nor in any of the folks who were "threatening" her. It was simply not a real incitement, just a psychological ploy.
That doesn't make it right, mind you, just not the same level as attempted rape or murder, or real-world incitement for those, or internet incitement of those with credible threat. It was just empty posturing which was truly scary.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "It was only inciting in the mind of the internet unsavvy victim, not in the mind of anyone else...."
So now you want to play word-games with "inciting"?
http://www.google.com/search?q=define+inciting
incite (verb), gerund or present participle 'inciting':
• encourage or stir up (violent or unlawful behavior).
[examples, synonyms]
• urge or persuade (someone) to act in a violent or unlawful way.http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/incite
• to move to action : stir up : spur on : urge on.
And so forth. Weev provided a Real-World, offline target (home address, SSN) and reasons to fire at it (false accusations of DMCA takedowns etc, designed to outrage his audience -- just as you, Ron, accuse her of "malice"!)... stirring up enough readers to release a flood of death threats against Sierra. What assurance did either Weev or Sierra have that a genuinely homicidal stalker was not among the unidentified crowd of threateners?
Oh, and here's an example of a legal definition:
http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2917.01
Ohio Revised Code
Title [29] XXIX CRIMES - PROCEDURE
Chapter 2917: OFFENSES AGAINST THE PUBLIC PEACE
2917.01 Inciting to violence.
(A) No person shall knowingly engage in conduct designed to urge or incite another to commit any offense of violence, when either of the following apply:
(1) The conduct takes place under circumstances that create a clear and present danger that any offense of violence will be committed;
(2) The conduct proximately results in the commission of any offense of violence.
(B) Whoever violates this section is guilty of inciting to violence. If the offense of violence that the other person is being urged or incited to commit is a misdemeanor, inciting to violence is a misdemeanor of the first degree. If the offense of violence that the other person is being urged or incited to commit is a felony, inciting to violence is a felony of the third degree.Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreThis is bullcrap inciting, it carried no real threat. It shouldn't have happened, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world, and it bears no comparison with real world threats. Sorry, your perception is just being twisted around by a person with an agenda to silence internet discourse.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreIs that all your education has done for your debating skills?
Taught you to act like the verbal equivalent of a monkey in a tree, throwing excrement?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreMy education tried to beat it out of me, but I thankfully resisted, at a certain personal cost. My education can go put a hairy porcupine in its cooter.
The exceptions were professional asshole physicists. These serve as role models: Eric Siggia, Philip Argyres, and a few others like Henry Tye and David Gross. These people throw poop, but they would usually throw more polished poop more accurately. I am simply popularizing the practice, as the internet calls it trolling, and makes it available outside of physics.
The monkey throwing excrement is serving an important purpose, as he is covering people throwing excrement right back. The excrement the people are throwing at the monkey is invisible to the people, only the monkey can see it.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWhile you keep doing the same things, will you expect any different results?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreYes, of course! I do the same thing, again, and again, and again, until I get a different result. That's how you do anything new.
Melissa Anelli Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreLOL. Well, enjoy your trolling. You are quite good at it.
Proteus Melissa Anelli • 6 years ago see moreI'm sorry for the pain you went thru. But 1 part of your comment just stands out like a sore thumb: "after I got fed up with not feeding her".
Why in the world would you get fed up with not feeding her? Think of something in your home or day to day life which you don't like. Do you feed it? Do you do anything whatsoever to encourage it? Do you even pay any attention to it at all?
The solution is simply totally and completely ignore the troll, ignore that which you don't like. Now, if there is physical violence involved that is a different story. But any, ANY, online activity can be ignored.
Totally, purely, completely ignored.
Raven Proteus • 6 years ago see moreWhich is why no business ever has problems with a Denial-of-Service attack.
Proteus Raven • 6 years ago see moreWhat? The lady said she "got fed up with not feeding her".
Which means she was feeding the troll. Understand?
Raven Proteus • 6 years ago see morePerhaps the better phrasing would have been "got fed up with not-feeding her". [note added hyphen to make it a single word]
Not-feeding, as in not-responding-to-attacks, had done nothing to reduce the volume of material her cyberstalker was sending. The troll was not starving. The troll was self-supplied. The usual tactic hadn't worked and wouldn't work; there was no point to relying on it any longer.
Proteus Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt's the same meaning. She was feeding the troll, giving it attention. Look, I deal with this problem online every day...in some forums people stalk me for months and months...when I see the first 2 letters of their name or their comment I simply move on and never give it another thought.
Whole other matter if the person moves into real life somehow but prior to that and internet only you must ignore, early and permanently.
I'm a pilot, skydiver, and back-country skier. We believe 100% in personal responsibility. When you have total control, when you can solve the problem yourself simply by changing your actions - DO IT.
Done. Over with. Move on.
Raven Proteus • 6 years ago • edited see more"She was feeding the troll, giving it attention."
Not exactly. What she changed in her tactics was to go from merely ignoring the cyberstalker to involving law enforcement -- as a result of which the stalker was arrested, charged, tried, and convicted of criminal harassment, and is now awaiting sentencing.
That is, I suppose, "attention"... but at least it should reduce for a while the level of harassment the troll CAN produce, and then perhaps deter the troll in future.
Melissa Anelli Raven • 6 years ago see moreThat's exactly it. It relates to trolling because that's the same kind of Venn diagram of abuse. There was an element of public trolling to what she was doing too, but I don't feel like posting all 800-or-so examples of what she has done. I went from ignoring it completely to treating it like the crime it is. If the only thing we are EVER allowed to do is ignore trolls, and that should be what is always done, then why doesn't it work? And it doesn't work. When it's serious enough that it becomes a crime, speaking against it, stopping this ridiculous notion that the only thing to do ever is ignore it, can help. Always tempered with the details of the real situation, of course. But "stand by in silence" is definitely not always the answer.
Miranda Ghrist Melissa Anelli • 6 years ago see moreYou're right, she doesn't sound like a troll, she sounds like a deranged stalker. You need to ask law enforcement for some help monitoring and blocking her. You need to protect yourself, and the more you talk about it the more support you'll gain. Eventually your pet nutcase may even wind up trollbait if she doesn't engage in self-correcting behavior.
Melissa Anelli Guest • 6 years ago see more"Just hit the delete button"? I forgot that the answer to my problem would be being mansplained to. If you didn't instantly realize that the FBI and NZ police wouldn't care this much if I could get rid of everything with delete, or it wasn't someone who found every way to go around every possible control, you have a very limited view of this issue. Or you could read more at the links provided, or use google, to answer your question.
Melissa Anelli Guest • 6 years ago see moreThey would, if it was a credible threat. A blogger being mean about you (as has been done to me, not in this instance, and was not a crime, just something that happened) is nowhere *near* the situation you have so blisteringly failed to comprehend. A video that gets a lot of hateful YouTube comments (akin to your "six a day") can have comments turned off; that's not an ideal solution, but it is one. This isn't that. But since you are so unwilling to comprehend the real situation I doubt further explanation from woman *or* man is going to help you much.
The next time someone asks me for the solution to this harmful, complicated, worldwide problem, however, I will tell them to look to you for forbearance and willpower. Surely if we were all just more like you, it wouldn't happen.
And even if that were true? Suggesting it's up to victims to ignore those who are abusing them, and not up to the abusers to stop committing crimes is at the very root of of an incredible number of issues. Next time a woman's being followed down the street nightly by an ex-lover, she should just not go out. Next time someone feels threatened by an aggressor, they should just practice zen breathing. No. The action doesn't lay on the victims, it lays on the criminals, and anyone who says otherwise is an enabler.
Raven Guest • 6 years ago • edited see more"... she was thousands of miles away...."
Which didn't stop her from (a) sending physical mail and packages to Melissa and her unsuspecting family members or (b) flying those thousands of miles to visit Melissa's home. So yes, following.
Stalkers follow. That's part of what stalking *is*. Ignoring them doesn't stop them at all. Rebecca Schaeffer had no idea she was being stalked; so ignoring accomplished, right up until the stalker came to her front door and met her the first time... went away, came back and killed her.
Melissa Anelli Guest • 6 years ago see more"You wouldn't understand, so I'm not going to tell you" sounds like something you would like to believe happened here, but what happened here is: "the answers have already been given to you in link form and would have been available to you via Google with four seconds of your time, so the idea that I should spend an exorbitant amount of time spoon feeding them to you by writing them out here, when you've proven you don't want to absorb words as they are written in front of you anyway, would be worthless."
As for aggression, yes, it's very aggressive to ignore everything for five solid years. Incredibly so.
This whole thread is necessary for people to read to understand the real issues at play here: the forces of callousness and lack of empathy and incredible condescension and arrogance from people unwilling to read words and understand them, never mind give a thought to compassion toward victims. You're coming here and proving every point about how deep and insidious this issue is and goes. As I move forward into endless, continuous work of *erasing* victimhood, I can do nothing but thank you for providing every single example I need of the increase in education on these matters and the volume of ignorami in the world who need such education on them,
Raven Guest • 6 years ago see moreDavid, did you miss the part about her family members being sent physical mail and packages -- which turned out to be from the stalker? A young nephew got a teddy bear with a note to enjoy his parents before he lost them. Yeah, Melissa should just ban the email address and ignore all those, that'll solve the problem right quick!
Raven Guest • 6 years ago see moreIn this case, ignoring did nothing to stop it. The harassment continued unabated. Getting law enforcement involved was what changed the power balance -- took the harasser into custody, trial, conviction, and soon sentencing. That response didn't give the harasser power, quite the contrary.
Matt Melissa Anelli • 6 years ago see moreLove you lots, Mel. It may not seem like it, but we've been following what's been going on, and we're behind you 1000%.
Yer Southern Cousin Matt
Miranda Ghrist • 6 years ago see moreI'm sure you're already aware people with jobs and lives offline can't spend all day researching details about somebodys life. I feel sorry for Melissa, and am curious as to how they're keeping tabs on the crazy lady. Is a GPS ankle bracelet and an app to warn her if crazy is too close included in the article? I'd appreciate getting filled in because I have to get offline in a few to make dinner.
Raven Miranda Ghrist • 6 years ago see moreDo I have to retype the article for you here because you can't click the link to read it there?
Miranda Ghrist Raven • 6 years ago see more*gasp* click... on.. a... link?!
Nope. I'm too lazy. You must indeed retype the article. With MLA citations, Times New Roman font, a cover page, and no less then two letters of recommendation from all those cats I know you're hoarding.
Ove Klykken Miranda Ghrist • 6 years ago see moreI think they mean it was Melissa's second paragraph in the post you commented on:
"About two months ago, she was finally rearrested. A few days ago, she pled guilty to criminal harassment. We are awaiting sentencing."
Miranda Ghrist Ove Klykken • 6 years ago see moreBut the edit at the bottom said she broke her bail or parole agreement and was sending her more nasty messages.
Steve Nordquist Miranda Ghrist • 6 years ago • edited see moreYeah, it's the top comment, and you're IN the comments, so it's expected you'd have read the thing you're replying to. In the middle of a fundraising dinner for the Halfling Stew Party or whatever.
Miranda Ghrist Steve Nordquist • 6 years ago see morelol! Halfling stew is a new one... does it taste like chicken?
Melissa Anelli Miranda Ghrist • 6 years ago see moreI have done simply every possible thing, gone to every agency, written every letter asked to write, etc etc etc. Whatever is being done is the limit of the will of those involved, so far. Which is when being silent no longer works.
Miranda Ghrist Melissa Anelli • 6 years ago see moreBeing silent never works. Stay strong and keep making noise, eventually something more effective will be done. For one thing, she's obviously mentally ill and you can't expect someone who's insane to obey the law or give up. Crazy doesn't make sense for a reason.
Is there any way you can launch a civil suit to force her into court-ordered psychiatric appointments? A lobotomy might gentle her down a bit. ;)
blasphomet • 6 years ago • edited see morehow about answering trolls with ghosts..
.. or at least teach them something to fear with real life troll huntershaving hunted it.. holding it by its troll hand i ask it, as i show him whole, his pinky extended.."for your promise.. you may keep your life, and this one... but for its transgressions.. these I take." and its removed, the tips of the fingers of pluck and luck.. "so that you may remember."
this is the truth of the story of a real ghost within this reality..
..hunting e-vile that hide in dark and shadow.Ron Maimon blasphomet • 6 years ago see moreThe thing is, trolls are just trying to teach you to do the same. They are living by the golden rule, you are not. Your post is a start, but trolling is not about sadism, it is about levelling authority, so you need to start by doing so for a cause that is NOT popular, but one you believe in.
blasphomet Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI believe trolls don't need fingers, i believe that is a good cause.
RDH • 6 years ago see moreI do wish Wired had printed her note from her original post. Here it is:
"[Note: I didn't want to have to write this. But here it is. I'm not linking it to the blog, and it won't likely stay up long, but you are welcome to contact me here if you want to put it somewhere else before I take it down. It is long and rambling and unedited and one of the few things I've written that I wrote mostly for myself. It is all I ever hope to have to say about it. Also? Content warning.]"
Kathy disclaimed many of the things people are picking at.
Guy Cocoa Guest • 6 years ago see moreIt's even worse when half the nation gets taken in by politicians who have no accomplishments, no experience and no morals, but talk a great game (from a TelePrompTer).
Mark Pescadofisk • 6 years ago see moreHe is a real rat turd in prison. I hope he has the balls to troll his fellow inmates up close and personal.
Ron Maimon Guest • 6 years ago see moreYeah, somehow I don't trust your judgement asshole, sucking up to a propagandist maliciously smearing another person publically.
Tantalus Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more"...I don't trust your judgement [explative], sucking up to a propagandist maliciously smearing another person publically."
Do you trust your own judgement?
Because you probably shouldn't.Ron Maimon Tantalus • 6 years ago see moreYup, I do. It's extremely good, if I might say so myself.
RDH cindysbeentrippin • 6 years ago see moreTrolls in their most benign form are despicable low lifes. They only get worse from there. No one wants a scat stirring monkey (read troll) in the mix when they are trying to have a conversation. They promote no side other than to gratify themselves. Not even going as far as playing devil's advocate to improve someone else's point. They are worse than the drunk guy barging into the middle of a conversation just to start a fight. At least you can beat the crap out of the drunk guy and have an end to it.
cindysbeentrippin RDH • 6 years ago see moreI think you're overgeneralizing things a little there RDH, I've known some very well educated, eloquent and salient trolls. There's all sorts of different types of trolls out there. And you have to admit, the internet would be pretty boring without us. As George Orwell said in 1984 "Only the trolls can save us." If you can't stand the trolls, there's always television.
RDH cindysbeentrippin • 6 years ago see moreIf I took the time to dissect every different type/flavor/genre of troll, I would have a doctorate in something I despise. I could live without you and your ilk just fine.
Have a good one
Nigel Lockhart cindysbeentrippin • 6 years ago see moreI love trolls. They make a soothing *thud* sound when their lifeless bodies hit the ground.
pcf11x Nigel Lockhart • 6 years ago see moreOf course when you die there will be no sound because you lack any substance to make one with.
Ash pcf11x • 6 years ago see moreYeah, you tell him! Stop saying mean things about people who make rape threats! They are the real victims here!
Ron Maimon Ash • 6 years ago see moreThis man made no rape threats. The real victims here are Stanford and Binet.
Ash Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreSorry, you're right. He only gave her address to people making rape and death threats, totally cool guy, not acting at all out of line.
He's spoken out against the rape threats, right?
Ron Maimon Ash • 6 years ago • edited see moreHe was too drug addled to speak out about anything, and now he might be too drug damaged to even remember what happened. I don't think there is anything more to do regarding him, his erratic behavior makes it impossible to say what he thinks or believes, but one must protect trolling online.
Ash Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreAlthough to be fair, I wasn't talking about anyone in particular, but answering the post about trolls in general, who often do make death and rape threats.
But that's a good thing, right Ron? That's somehow a positive thing for humanity?
James Cheatham • 6 years ago see moreI'm so sorry for what happened to you. I'm also impressed that you were willing to talk about it. Your description is dead on and essentially shows these people for what they are, bullies. They're people who attack because they know you can't fight back, it's why they thrive on anonymity. They're safe from reprisals and there really is no recourse. Even if you could find them what then? Like you said, law enforcement has better things to do, you could sue these yabbos if they had any money, but it would just feed the meme. (Bullies are often good a playing the victim too.) It's like they never grew out of junior high.
Ron Maimon James Cheatham • 6 years ago see moreThey are the opposite of bullies. They are powerless folks who fight for justice using internet flame as their medium. In this case, he just hasn't figured out what exactly he should be fighting for.
One must respect the internet trolls, as they are your only defense from censored mass media. Do you really want to go back to the 80s? When all you heard was what powerful moguls decided you deserved to hear? That's what you are suggesting when you suggest to silence the trolls.
James Cheatham Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreB.S. they're bullies. Show me how this guy was fighting for anything except the satisfaction of attacking and destroying someone else. If they were just expressing their opinions it would be one thing, but look at the extent this guy went to. It was almost psychopathic, but because he wasn't showing up at her house or business to intimidate her you give him a pass? Nuts to that.
Ron Maimon James Cheatham • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou don't know what happened, you are inferring it unfairly from the prosecution's case alone.
If you would like to see him fighting for something worthwhile, here you go, two recent blog posts.http://weev.livejournal.com/409835... , http://weev.livejournal.com... . There is another one on political prisoner there too, they are important and interesting
James Cheatham Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI don't need to see other cases. Justify this one. Show me the defenses argument that doing what he did HERE was justified. The mans a coward, I base that on the fact that he attacked someone who couldn't counter attack. I'm sure he would have kept it civil if there was a possibility of someone showing up at his front door with a baseball bat.
Ron Maimon James Cheatham • 6 years ago • edited see moreIT WASN'T JUSTIFIED. Doxxing is never justified. People do wrong things sometimes.
But the person who did it wasn't even necessarily him, he might have simply been lying, falsely taking credit for doxxing her. He has done that in the past regarding other hacks that he knew no one else would claim.
He also might have done it. I don't know. It's not my job to judge him, and might I suggest it is not your job either. Why are we doing it here?
Mark Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWe are posting opinions based on a loser's conviction and some statements made by one of his victims who probably has received more threats from loser trolls by coming forward again. Why do you hate discussion?
James Cheatham Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreSo you're saying that he's insane and taking credit for someone elses assault and that's an excuse? I'm doing it here because you commented on my post, so why not here. As for judging, isn't that what you were condoning? You might disagree in this case but: "One must respect the internet trolls, as they are your only defense from censored mass media." is judging just as much as mine. What you are implying is the same thing as saying "Well most of the time the cops shoot bad guys so if they get an innocent guy once in a while we should let it go."
Ultimately I don't think you quite understand what a "Troll" is. They don't contribute anything but bile to a conversation. People can disagree with each other without being nasty about it. What this guy did (ok allegedly did, but took credit for anyway) went beyond even that.Ron Maimon James Cheatham • 6 years ago see moreI understand perfectly well what leads to the charge of "trolling". This charge is levelled against anyone forcefully defending an unpopular opinion, whether it is correct or incorrect. This activity must be defended to the very end, period.
I am not standing in individual judgement, I don't make any claims about criminal behavior by anyone.
James Cheatham Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRead the story again, it's against people who go out of their way, not to show just displeasure with an opinion but with EVERYTHING about the person. And we're not just talking about expressing their own opinion. A campaign like this was way over the top. He wasn't being forceful he wasn't even being an A-hole, he was being a bully. I don't care if he helps the homeless on his weekends and gives to charity, his actions with this person were bullying plain and simple.
Chris Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWhy don't you detach your lips from weev's ass and then come back and have a conversation like an adult?
Ron Maimon Chris • 6 years ago see moreI don't like weev all that much. I am defending him because he is incapable of cogently defending himself, and he needs a good defender, because this cause is important to everybody, not just to him.
Mark Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI inferred it unfairly from his mama's basement appearance, but that was probably just me. He looks like he was pulled out of a mushroom cave and moved into prison. Hope it's not too bright for him.
Ron Maimon Mark • 6 years ago see moreHe looks fine to me, although he looks slightly too Jewish to be a nazi.
facefault Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon, I know you love to fight for unpopular causes. (I've read and enjoyed a bunch of your Stack Exchange posts, and upvoted a lot of your math and physics posts back when you were on Quora). But this cause neither needs nor deserves your support.
Internet trolls of the type Sierra's talking about aren't powerless. They're often people who have excellent communications skills (both in the net sense and the social sense) targeting people who don't.
Trolls are no defense against media censorship - much the reverse. They try to intimidate people whose opinions make them uncomfortable. The racists on the comment section of any NBC or CNN story that relates to race aren't stopping "censorship," because they have zero impact on coverage. But the same types commenting on small blogs or other alternative media do have an effect, because they can shout small authors into not writing. I've seen several blogs I've enjoyed shut down over such threats.
There is no situation in which trolls make alternative views more likely to be heard.
Mark facefault • 6 years ago see moreAmen. And they deserve as much respect as say, the mosquito, or tapeworms or malaria. They are destructive parasites, not helpful and without redeeming social value.
Ron Maimon Mark • 6 years ago see moreThey are the most important thing on the internet, and they must be protected.
Ron Maimon Mark • 6 years ago • edited see moreThat's a good one, cockroach. Get your palps down and calm your mushroom body. Your leg-bristles are extending, and your antennae are quivering with hate.
Ron Maimon facefault • 6 years ago see moreThis is simply false. The alternative viewpoint the racist trolls produce is the RACIST viewpoint, which a decent person is simply never exposed to in ordinary life, except by seeking it out, which never happens.
By listening and understanding the racist viewpoint, a lot of subtle racism in mass media is exposed, because you learn what racism really sounds like and what the racism really is. There are subtle racist things that were not picked up on in the past, like the "magic negro" or the "soft bigotry of low expectations", in George W. Bush's favorite phrase, which were clarified by out an out racists explaining themselves online. These are now regularly identified by the public, and called out for what they are--- racism.
The racist comments may be deleted when they are off-topic, there is nothing wrong with that. But they are simply bringing up one particularly unpopular and particularly heinous point of view, and on usenet, you could always get rid of the racists by heckling quicker than they could produce their nonsense.
facefault Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI disagree. Hearing overt racists does not make covert racism easier to see - much the reverse.
Once you've waded through dozens of posts about "murderous savages" and "disease-ridden immigrants", paternalism or even Charles Murray-style "sadly, these problems are irremediable" posts start to sound benign.
I used to spend hours earnestly arguing with racists online, and didn't learn a damn thing about the subtle forms of racism from that. Liberal media and conversations with friends who'd experienced microaggressions were what taught me.
I can see an argument that reading vicious bigotry and death threats directed at minorities and women might help oblivious people realize that that kind of prejudice is still common in America. But do you think that's worth the price that the people who get those threats pay?
Ron Maimon facefault • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou are completely wrong, you have clearly not actually spent "hours" arguing with racists, as you would have slowly seen that they don't make such facile arguments in an unending stream. They intersperse it with reasoning, which is approximately self-consistent and self-reinforcing. Further, the more exposure you have to this, the better you get at spotting subtle versions of it in media. Yes, online it's sometimes less subtle, but the same people will produce a continuum of racism going from overt to subtle.
Seeing this stuff and talking to those people in depth is what makes you realize that the attitude is held by ordinary people, not space aliens. As they continue discussing, they move from overt threats to explain subtler points. For example, ask a racist what is their favorite portrayal of a black character in film? If they point you to "Gone With The Wind" you learned something about that film. Ask them what is their favorite tool for arguing white supremacy, and they will point at the IQ test. You learn something about what that test is all about. It's informative to argue with racists, at least until they start repeating themselves, and them it gets boring. This happens very fast.
facefault Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI did so on a mix of news comment sections and /pol/, and did indeed spend many hours doing so. (And yeah, I am very used to IQ test and g factor woo at this point. Cosma Shalizi's posts on intelligence testing were a great antidote to that).
Mark Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI would alter the beginning of your second paragragh to:
NO one must respect the internet trolls.
Just sayin. And I lived through the 80s when the media moguls painted Ron Reagan as a wild eyed racist pistol waver that would start WW3 the minute he got the suitcase. He won 49 states.Ron Maimon Mark • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Reagan was a wild eyed pistol waver who nearly started WW3 the minute he got the suitcase. Seriously, I had horrific paralyzing fear every week in 1983 and 1984, which only fully went away in 1989. I blame HIM personally. What I would agree with you on is that it was out of monumental stupidity and incompetence, not out of malicious intent.
I am staying silent on his racism, because he didn't seem personally racist, but he didn't appoint any black people, and he used the southern strategy.
FrillArtist • 6 years ago • edited see moreYawn...much ago ado about nothing. A storm in a teacup if you will. People will always criticize, be it in a favorable or unfavorable manner.
Zaoldyeck FrillArtist • 6 years ago see moreYeah, how dare she care about people posting her social security number, home address, and phone number online or threaten her with rape? How dare she care about people harassing her with false craigslist ads causing strangers to show up to her door? (And it's not like random craigslist strangers are ever dangerous to women!)
People will always criticize so it's pointless to try to stand up to actual blatant absolute disgusting harassment.
Screw you if you can't see what's wrong with the online culture that promotes this.
Ron Maimon Zaoldyeck • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt's unethical, but it's not the level that rises to a serious credible threat of violence, either to herself or to her family. It's internet bullcrap and it's just an obnoxious minor threat, and you should know this.
Zaoldyeck Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreThink about that for a moment. If someone online really hated you enough to find pictures of your children, photoshop them onto porn pictures, email (or possibly even mail them) to you... would you not be creeped out by the amount of time someone spent trying to make you uncomfortable?
Or would you brush it off as 'I'm sure they're not really dangerous to me or my family'? If someone were to, perhaps, post your social security number online, with your home address and everything, making you a potential victim for identity theft, would you brush it off as a casual harmless internet bullcrap or would you REALLY freak out because now someone had to spend the time searching for things like personal tax documents or trying to find a way into your computer. Would you really think that's in no way any credible threat?
If people are calling you saying "I'm going to rape you, better watch yourself at night, I'll wait for you to be alone" are you really going to think "this is just casual internet bullcrap and a obnoxious minor threat" or would you want to contact the police because you're really concerned about your own safety?
Honestly I can't imagine how freaked out I'd be with even SOME of those things, but what she went through is mind-boggling. I can't imagine the types of people who would do that to her, I don't understand their mindset, and if you say 'well they're just sociopaths' then yeah I'd be scared the only thing keeping it as a 'minor threat' is the fact that sociopaths still don't want to go to jail. I'd hate to see one who feels he has nothing to lose and wants to go out with a bang.
I'd be terrified of the people who find the time to make an obsession out of trying to upset me, and I think you would too.
Ron Maimon Zaoldyeck • 6 years ago see moreI would be scared too, of course. It's not right. But the level of threat is not the same as death threats, or following, or any real world threatening activity. This stuff is deadly serious, and the internet stuff is a psychological war of attrition.
I don't condone doxxing at all. I am simply separating the threat and countering the propaganda that equates this behavior with attempted rape and murder. It's bad, but it's not as bad as that.
yesteray FrillArtist • 6 years ago see morePlease post your address and phone number here, and also photographs of your family, so that we can create a storm in your personal teacup with threats of rape and other violence. TIA.
Ash FrillArtist • 6 years ago • edited see moreThat you call the events described 'criticism' speaks volumes about your character.
Thank you for warning us.
f0rget • 6 years ago see moreGreat article. Not all battles are fought to be won, sometimes you just have to fight them.
Nigel Lockhart Guest • 6 years ago see moreIt'll be fun when you start screaming. Too bad no one will hear it.
BusterNaeslund • 6 years ago see moreThank you so very much for giving this important text more exposure. Tjis serves as a kind of vaccine against the next gamergate clusterfuck. To read this and see how that insane story played out as if scripted from this text.
Jeremy Campbell • 6 years ago see moreGreat, except some people's ideas are bad or stupid, and those people shouldn't be followed at all. Is vitriolic criticism of bad or stupid ideas also "trolling"?
Matthew Moulton Jeremy Campbell • 6 years ago see moreThese days "trolling" has become a knee-jerk reactionary scream to any information, facts, arguments or other that effectively bitch slaps you into frustrated, indignant, ineptitude.
Don't have a counter argument? Just scream, "TROLL!" :D
Nigel Lockhart Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago • edited see moreCan't believe I'm going to have to post this again...
How do you propose people counter argument fabricated half-truths, slander and harassment?
When you and your kind start to disappear, no one will bother looking for you.
Matthew Moulton Nigel Lockhart • 6 years ago see moreIf I verbally smack you hard enough... do you think the "skipping" will stop? ^__^
Ash Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreDescribing someone as a troll is not always a lack of argument. Some times it's because they are a troll.
Duh.
Matthew Moulton Ash • 6 years ago see moreNo. Because technically EVERYONE is a "troll"...
http://www.flamewarriorsgui...
...sorry, but that's just the way it is.
So... which one are YOU? :D
Tony Leggett • 6 years ago see moreWhat a great & thoughtful article. So sorry to hear you went through this Kathy
envoy510 Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreWow, another troll who uses false statements to make a BS point. SSN's are not in the phone book, little Matthew.
Dio Sotin Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreAh, the horrible- diseases -all -over- the- planet,- so -we -don't- talk- about- anything- else shit. Well played.
Matthew Moulton Torkil Johnsen • 6 years ago see moreMmmm, I don't remember her SS ever being posted anywhere.
It is theoretically possible though... I mean, technically speaking SS numbers are no longer private information... largely as a result of dumbfuck college institutions that used SS numbers as student IDs, which were then easily stolen en masse, often times simply by picking up old, thrown out hard drives and restoring the deleted data.
Medical institutions are another real easy target. Basically if you've ever been to a hospital or you've ever been to a college... mmmm... yer SS number is probably no longer private.
Torkil Johnsen Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreShe says her SSN was posted when she was doxxed and tweeted right before this weev went to jail. This is backed up by other sources.
Matthew Moulton Torkil Johnsen • 6 years ago see moreWhat sources? Where's the Dox-Bin or Paste-Bin file?
Torkil Johnsen Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreLong gone, hopefully, or safely stored with someone hell-bent on making trolls' lives miserable.
Matthew Moulton Torkil Johnsen • 6 years ago • edited see moreMmmm, I'm generally not inclined to believe such claims unless there's actual real proof of them. Either there's links and they're publicly available (doxed)... or they're not.
To say they ~were~ available ~at one point~ is... mmmm, no.
At this point most of those files are located on the TOR network... so it's not like they can ever actually go away... they're effectively permanent.
Deborah Bogan Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreThen by your logic, we should believe you when you usee the reasoning that your ssn was plastered all over Georgia to devalue her point. I've been to Georgia, I did not see your ssn anywhere. And your use of fruity little dingbat shows you for the troll you are
Torkil Johnsen Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreI read some of your posts now Matthew. I only read about guys like you before, but never actually came across a real specimen. I think I'm going to subscribe to your feed for research purposes. Just out of curiousity; Is MM your real identity? And/or do you have other aliases I can subscribe to as well? Wait. Blue glasses? Is this you? https://images.encyclopedia...
David "Lefty" Schlesinger Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreIt's clear that you aspire to being as tedious a sociopath as weev is (as pathetic and childish an aspiration as that is).
I have to tell you, you've got no flair for it. You'd be mocked off of 4chan for lack of imagination.
appleblossom Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see more"Unless you give me this information to then use nefariously, it did not happen."
Ian Williamson Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreYou're the one making up all these compound swears and acting like a spazz man. I wish you luck on your apparent mission to act as repellent as possible to a laughing audience of real people.
Matthew Moulton Ian Williamson • 6 years ago see more"laughing audience of real people"
...so then "the lurkers are supporting you in the e-mails", eh kiddo? :D
Mark Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see morehaha. waaaa.. look at me! I can swear! Talk about projection.
Matthew Moulton Torkil Johnsen • 6 years ago see moreWeev says otherwise... and he has actual evidence that he wasn't involved at all...
http://weev.livejournal.com...
Queued Queuedington Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreSo, you're disputing the facts as stated in the article, or is it a reading comprehension problem?
Matthew Moulton Queued Queuedington • 6 years ago see moreDisputing "facts"... uh... you might want to ~check~ your "facts" there, bud...
http://weev.livejournal.com...Herp derp!
Queued Queuedington Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreIt seems fairly dubious to simply take Weev at his word. Why his word and not hers? One has the support of the New York Times, and one defends doxxing before weakly denying it, raves and insults his accuser in a pretty classless rant, and presents "evidence" that nobody reasonable would accept, attempting to gloss over its weakness by pre-insulting anybody who dares doubt it. Not that I knew who Weev was (he refers to himself as a celebrity) but everything he says seems to indicate, yes, everything in this article is true.
Ron Maimon Queued Queuedington • 6 years ago see moreThe reason to trust weev over her is that she is doing obvious political propagana, and weev has a swastika on his fucking chest, so he obviously doesn't give a rat's ass what anyone else thinks, so he is not doing propaganda. He might be lying, he might not, it is secondary consideration. The primary consideration is that there is an internet lynch mob sicced on him, and this must be resisted.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: Has it really been your experience of the world that men who have swastikas on their chests don't do political propaganda?
Because my experience has been the opposite, e.g. Stormfront.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreSorry, you have a point, let me rephrase: if weev is trying to do propaganda, he obviously SUCKS BALLS at it. On the other hand, this lady is pretty good.
Queued Queuedington Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI don't know either of these people, but from reading weev's own words, I know that's a load of crap. And I'm pretty sure the guy who vocally supports internet lynch mobs can suck it if he's looking for protection from internet lynch mobs. The hypocrisy is overwrought.
Ron Maimon Queued Queuedington • 6 years ago • edited see moreThe powerless folks who are in danger of state persecution require protection from internet lynch mobs. His "lynch mob" posed no credible threat to Karen, that was all in her head. It was not right, it was scary, it caused her distress, and perhaps she should sue him.
But if she decides not to sue him, there is no reason for her to sic an internet lynch mob on him, when it he is threatened with the very real threat of real-world prosecution. He is not the powerful one here, his only presence is online.
Queued Queuedington Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreFirst, whether or not his "lynch mob" posed a credible threat to Karen is immaterial -- unless Karen has a way to determine that for herself (which she doesn't) it's still a threat, and objectively just as real as a threat which is followed up with violence. At least we agree that it was not right, and it was scary. Where we differ is that you seem to think it's okay. weev explicitly states that it's okay. Does that justify prosecution? I suggest you consult a lawyer for actual legal advice, but whether or not threats are online is absolutely immaterial to whether or not they're prosecutable. And whether or not a crime is as bad as some other crime isn't relevant when prosecuting that crime.
Neighbor Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see morewhat the bloody hell- you think it is awful that she would do it, but righteous that he would?? This must be serious mommy issues, you are not making any sense otherwise. Sorry about that but you and troll need to seek help, not lash out at innocent people. Why is his presence "only" online if he is so smart?
Mark Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreHe is a provocative sociopath who only doxx people 'that deserve it'. Yes, that makes him incredibly reliable. I can see that. There is a difference between moderating comments to remove idle threats and stupidity that wastes everyone's time and censorship. If you can't see that, then you really aren't very clever.
Ron Maimon Mark • 6 years ago see moreyeah, yeah. You haven't seen good new science content removed as "stupidity that wastes everybody's time", and defence of this new science removed as "idle threats". You simply have no idea what you are talking about, jackass.
I am a provocative sociopath too, and I don't think anyone deserves doxxing.
percykins Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see more"weev has a swastika on his fucking chest, so he obviously doesn't give a rat's ass what anyone else thinks"
You get an F in human psychology. Weev has a swastika on his fucking chest so he obviously gets kicks out of offending other people. I love the concept of "I don't care what people think, therefore SWASTIKA." Not to mention that actually not caring what other people think combined with antisocial behavior is pretty much the textbook definition of a psychopath.
Ron Maimon percykins • 6 years ago • edited see moreI have explained to you that under that definition I am a world class psychopath, and I believe you are ethically required to be one too, at the very least online, where it is a requirement.
percykins Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreYou explained that to me? This is the first time I have ever spoken to you. And no, that definition does not even remotely make me a psychopath. If you are a psychopath under that definition I would strongly urge you to get some help.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "The reason to trust weev over her is that... weev has a swastika on his fucking chest...."
From now on I should only cite neo-Nazi sources to you, because you trust men with swastikas on their chests to be honest?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreI trust men with swastikas on their chests are not trying to win a popularity contest.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreWeev was certainly trying to make Kathy Sierra unpopular -- and succeeded in that social context, at least. A flood of death threats sounds like a type of persecution. (For example, having a cross-burning held near one's home is an implicit threat, and is/was part of the persecution white-supremacists inflicted on blacks.) Sierra has neither inflicted nor incited death threats upon Weev, yet you insist she is persecuting him. That seems like an incredible double standard on your part.
Oh, and Weev sent the photo of that tattoo to his fellow white-supremacists, who applauded it. He certainly won popularity in that social circle....
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreYou haven't noticed something, but I'll give you a clue--- his last name is Auernheimer. Also, his tattoo is a bit unusual for a swastika, much more elaborate, his racist rants are unusual, in that the language is strangely restrained always skirting the border of the point of no return, and the abuse is directed only at powerful people, namely the judge and prosecution in his case. The only praise he gives to white supremacists is oblique praise of their preservation of Western European folklore, which is really the only nice thing you can say about them.
As far as I can see, weev has pulled off the troll equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest. It's simply unbelievable, I would never have been able to pull of anything like this, it's the next generation of troll.
That social circle is not a social circle, it's a 10 creepy lonely guys in a basement, and he really isn't all that popular among them--- they are using him for publicity, he is simply writing to call attention to something interesting without any malice, as usual.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreHis last name is Bavarian, from Auernheim (the highest town in Middle Franconia). What did you think it meant?
His tattoo depicts the Aesir -- the gods of Asgard.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreHe has a certain amount of Jewish ancestry, and his racist rant attacks with the wrong power perspective from racism, by placing others in a position of power, and attacking from the position of the powerless. This is not what racism normally sounds like.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more"He has a certain amount of Jewish ancestry...."
If it was only the sound of the name "Auernheimer" that led you to such a conclusion, sorry to disillusion you. It simply means someone from Auernheim -- which is near Neresheim, Nattheim, Heidenheim, Schnaitheim, Forheim, Hohenaltheim, Ederheim, Ziertheim, Haunsheim, Bolheim, Alerheim, Huisheim, Tapfheim, and Steinheim am Albuch... as well as some towns whose names don't end in "-heim".
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt's not from his name, although that was a clue, it was from the sound of his voice admitting it to a reporter in an article. He has Jewish ancestry. He is now in the Levant learning arabic, which can be construed as a form of powerless non-zionist aaliyah.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more"... it was from the sound of his voice admitting it to a reporter in an article."
In an article, you could hear the sound of his voice?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreThe article is here: http://gawker.com/5962159/t... . Unlike other people here, I don't make crap up for rhetorical purposes. Now you can conclude from this that he is lying somewhere. Here is an informative pre-prison interview: https://www.youtube.com/wat... . However, earlier videos I have seen show a person who is somewhat deranged in a Bobby Fischer way, railing about Jewish this and Jewish that. It's difficult to know what is sincere, because the attitudes change from instance to instance, this is unforunately a symptom of drug abuse and lack of a solid center.
I think it is next to impossible to be aware of power structures in society to the extent that he is and simultaneously be a racist, it's like knowing calculus and simultaneously failing to realize that a product of two odd numbers is always odd. It's logically possible, sure, but it's difficult to imagine. Racism of any kind is really, really, primitive.
I am not 100% sure on his position, one of the problems with drugs is that drug addled people don't have a consistent position from moment to moment, it all depends on the details of the momentary brain chemistry. but the sophisticated awareness of power and trolling makes it unlikely. By the way, being one quarter Jewish, or even half Jewish (like Fischer), or full Jewish (like Fischer, really) does not immunize you to the anti-Jewish thing in any way. But I believe awareness of power structures must, because that's what its all about.
Now that I've heard his voice, it isn't what I imagined it to be. His trolling is valid, it's good trolling and it's for the right reasons in my opinion, but there's something unstable there, unfortunately more like Valerie Solenas than Richard Stallman. There is absolutely no need to repeat an experiment in psychotropic drugs which failed entirely, and decimated the radical movements once, and can do so again.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see morePlease do dig up the article.
But I'm sorry, "reading him quoted" is *not* hearing "the sound of his voice" -- which is what you gave as your basis for believing he has Jewish ancestry. This was yet another misleading claim you've given, and one more reason I won't be relying on anything you say.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more"... his racist rant attacks with the wrong power perspective from racism, by placing others in a position of power, and attacking from the position of the powerless. This is not what racism normally sounds like."
That is exactly the Aryan Nations and other American white-supremacist "pitch" -- that the USA is living under a Zionist Occupation Government ("ZOG"), the Jews control everything, the blacks are being favored in order to dilute and subdue the white race, and their duty is to fight a rear-guard battle of resistance then ultimately overthrow ZOG, hence the militia compounds dotting the countryside.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreSort of, not exactly, it depends on the details. That's what they say, that they are in danger, but they don't make themselves seem powerless. Their caricatures of Jews are of a powerless sexless nebbish with a grating accent who sometimes get into a position of power through occult practices, and their caricatures of blacks are of borderline homeless hoodlums with no appeal. This is to deny actual power to those folks, which is something that, for them, involves masculine sexual authority and threat of violence.
Weev does something else, which also crosses the line in certain places.
Ron Maimon Queued Queuedington • 6 years ago see moreI am disputing the facts as stated in the article. As far as I can see this is a pack of lies.
Queued Queuedington Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreJust so we're clear, your position is that her social security number, which was demonstrably included in doxx at the time, was not actually her social security number? Or that the number included wasn't a social security number? It was the correct format, how far does your research go?
Ron Maimon Queued Queuedington • 6 years ago • edited see moreMy position is that you don't know anything, since you didn't see the doxx. There might have been no SSN in there, I don't know, and neither do you. You have no more information than I do.
You also don't know who posted that doxx. You are inferring this from public boasts of an unreliable source. He might not have even posted it, he might have just bragged about it, like he bragged about hacking AT&T when it wasn't him.
And still, without any evidence, without anything but innuendo, you persist is villifying this guy, simply because he is a JERK, because he is unpopular. No, no. That's not acceptable.
Further it is also my position that this is a hatchet job on rude internet discourse, based on nonexistent associations with real-world violence. There was no credible threat of violence to this woman, and her piece is making innuendo to suggest that there was for the purpose of instituting internet censorship. This is abominable.
Queued Queuedington Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI did see the doxx. I have the doxx right here. Do I know who posted them? Not for certain, no, but I'm not sure how relevant it is. I'm not sure what basis you have for claiming that real-world violence is not associated with direct threats, but as I am a professional in the field, I'll simply point out that you're very wrong. Although the incidence is low, the association is very solid, and like a threat to the president, threats cannot simply be ignored.
Like weev's own disgusting words and attitude (his own,) who attempts to justify internet threats because "everybody does it," your beliefs seem to stem more from wishful thinking than actual fact.
Ron Maimon Queued Queuedington • 6 years ago • edited see moreI am not sure I believe you have the doxx. How did you get it? Could you demonstrate it in some way? I really don't believe you, I think you are simply making more propaganda.
I know there is an association between REAL WORLD threats and REAL WORLD violence. I am telling you, "professional in this field", that the association between online threats between strangers on internet discussion fora and real-world violence, is nil. The flame wars you see on sites like this have never led to a single case of real world violence, simply because there is no motivation or opportunity for it to ever happen, even in cases where doxxing has occured. It is not right, it is unethical, and it deserves a lawsuit, but I don't see a credible realistic threat there. People just let out steam in hostile comments, there is some bad feeling, it goes away, and this activity is essential, as it is the mechanism of producing truth. I WISH everyone did it! As it stands, it is not the norm.
I will not accept your expertise blindly. I would like you to demonstrate that there is a real-world violence threat from online discussion fora before imposing restrictions on these. I simply dogmatically don't believe it is possible for these discussions to spill over into real world confrontation, as there is no mechanism for it to happen.
Any credible threat I see only appears in real world sites, where people actually exchange goods and services, or meet in person.
Queued Queuedington Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreLet's frame this properly. You know that threats escalate to violence, though obviously, not always. You know that online threats are not substantively different from offline threats. Yet, you wish to believe that online threats somehow do not escalate to violence. I'll address this in a moment, but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that it does not actually matter. Both in a legal sense and in the pejorative sense, bullying is bullying and harassment is harassment whether there's a follow up of actual violence or not -- what's important is the belief of the victim. So unless the victim happens to share your beliefs with quite a bit of conviction, it really doesn't matter.
Back to your request, the difference between an online threat and any other threat is the perception that it cannot be carried out due to anonymity. This anonymity is (obviously) shattered when one party demonstrates that the other is not anonymous. That's the whole point -- doxxing emphasizes an imbalance of power and illustrates that the threatener is not only capable of following through on a threat but either committed enough to do so or involving those who are.
You're no doubt aware of a number of well publicized murders by people who first posted threats online, and both targeted and vague, so it cannot be lost on you that yes, online threats are sometimes followed up in an extremely violent fashion. Does the user of a forum or the recipient of a threat know that they are not talking to a potential mass murderer or sociopath? Of course not, the information imbalance is one sided.
I don't expect you to accept my expertise blindly, and since you seem both intelligent and rational, a dialog seems worthwhile, but I also don't expect you to sit back and demand others do research for you to correct an opinion without basis that its at its heart, illogical and inconsistent.Ron Maimon Queued Queuedington • 6 years ago • edited see moreI DON'T BELIEVE YOU HAVE THE DOXX. Can you post the MD5 sum?
Regarding your comments, I accept this threat model is true of traditional interactions. Threats can be credible in the real world.
However it is simply not true that all online idle threats can be construed to automatically turn into actual live threats through the action of posting the dox. There is simply no credible motive or opportunity for real-world violence in an international forum, with participants often thousands of miles away, and nearly always hundreds of miles away, with no expectation of violence, and with no financial or personal motive, other than impersonal insults to pet ideas. It is ludicrous to assume this, it has never happened, and it will never happen.
While it is true that the fellow is doing something I consider highly unethical by doxxing, that does not make him automatically liable for all the idle threats which were posted in the weeks before, which were clearly made with no intention of actually carrying them out. He would be liable only for the direct threat of the dox, the potential of a homocidal or sociopathic reader (although the probability is small, it is not zero) and for the harm caused by justifiable fear of such a person.
For this, he is liable, and he can be sued for damages. I don't think this is inappropriate, I would take such action myself. Perhaps with proper legislation against doxxing, he can even be prosecuted, although I would not support this legislation if you ask my opinion, as I think the burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt is simply never going to be met.
But this is NOT THE TOPIC OF THE DISCUSSION.
The topic of the discussion is the censorship of online forums. There is simply nothing in this case that leads one to think that this is necessary or advisable. Online forums are useful because they are free speech, and free of real-world violence, or repercussions. They are simply abstract discussions of ideas.
The use of harsh language, and threats in such a forum constitutes a rhetorical device, plain and simple, and it is simply a mistake of context to ever construe such a thing as a direct threat or call to action against an individual. It is designed to offset imbalance in authority, so that an individual with no standing to argue is equally visible as an individual with authority. That is, until the exchange terminates, and one side has been refuted.
This discourse is unprecedented, because it is quite rude, and it is free of the strictures of tradtional authority. This is what makes internet discourse invaluable. Any attempt to rid the internet of "trolling" (unlike, say, an attempt to rid the internet of doxxing) would jeopardize the very essence of the new medium, it would transform it into just another platform for government and business, rather than the public open platform for individuals which it has been since its inception.
Mark Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreAnd again with 'wheres the evidence?' The man responded, and being a troll you immediately demand more and accuse him of lying basically. Look. Weev, the fat loser, is in a cell, convicted by a jury and helped by his own confessions. The flame wars like this lead to murder and mayhem almost every single day. There was a stabbing in my town just a week or so ago that started on twitter. You are delusional and seem incapable of acknowledging the truth.
Ron Maimon Mark • 6 years ago • edited see moreI disagree, you are lying just as much as Queod Quodington above. These things do not lead to real world violence, just the opposite, they mitigate it, by allowing the powerless to speak out and be heard, and to debate on a level playing field with the powerful. This levelling effect is why the free speech is being attacked, there is no violence associated with fora.
The evidence that he doesn't have the doxx is simply that the doxx are unavailable. If he posts the MD5 sum, I will verify it with someone who has the copy (I don't, but I am sure one of the commentators does).
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "I disagree, you are lying.... These things do not lead to real world violence, just the opposite...."
Your covering your eyes to the Real World and plunging ahead (only on assumptions you made early on without evidence) have gotten creakingly old. It can't even be said that you "never change" these assumptions; you can flip back and forth in the course of a paragraph, as it suits your argument. For instance, you accuse commenters here of intending to cause real-world harm to Weev by their comments in the thread!
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreI do whatever I damn well please, just to make it clear that NO you are not right, and NO you do not have unity, and NO you cannot persuade. I only seem to contradict myself to the mentally retarded. I know what I think, and I'm honest.
I have changed my mind in the course of this conversation. I went from thinking defending weev is a necessary evil in order to protect the internet, to actively liking him, and realizing he really is the best troll who ever lived.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see more• Facebook Unfriending Leads To A Double Murder
• Twitter Argument Leads to Alleged Murder
• Notable Internet homicides, including:
• David Heiss, a 21-year-old German office worker, became infatuated with a British girl, Joanna Witton, 20, who along with her boyfriend Matthew Pyke, 20, was an administrator of the Advance Wars series fansite, Wars Central. After his advances were rebuffed, including two visits, Heiss traveled to the UK once more and stabbed Matthew Pyke to death. He was jailed for life in May 2009. A police spokesman noted that, "While this is an extremely unusual case, one thing is clear and that is that Heiss used the internet to harass and stalk Joanna and Matthew. He eventually found out where they lived and other information about them that enabled him to carry out his plans. We should all consider the amounts of personal information we share on web systems like MSN and on internet forums."
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreYeah great for you. It's a big world. My sister was killed when she drowned in a vat of ice-cream. Let's ban ice-cream.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYour stupid fear-mongering doesn't work, asswipe. The number of internet violent encounters, let alone homicides, can be counted on one hand, and do not pose any greater danger than lightning strike. On the other hand, the amount of good that internet rude speech has done is incalculable.
I changed my mind, you rotten apple. I think you are permanently brain damaged.
Neighbor Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see more"u persist is villifying this guy, simply because he is a JERK, because he is unpopular. No, no. That's not acceptable."
hahahahahha yeah what the world needs is more respect for obnoxious psychopaths. It is not fair to vilify them. Waaa it's not fair!
Ron Maimon Neighbor • 6 years ago see moreYes, precisely. What the world needs is more respect for obnoxious psychopaths (like me) and it is wrong to villify them. It's not about fairness, the psychopaths, when they are right factually, are the most important online resource.
Mark Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreHmm. A grand jury and then a jury of his peers did judge him, after hearing the facts and they make him go bye-bye for a while. The 'where's the "evidence"' plaintive cry of trolls everywhere is falling kind of flat.
Ron Maimon Mark • 6 years ago see moreNo, the authority of grand-juries and juries is being eroded instead. Clearly they don't know doodly squat, and one must fight these abuses of the criminal justice system even harder.
Mark Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreAs far as I can see it's the Gospel. Also. There is the sticky point of a trial by jury and conviction. Also, the mama's basement booking photo. The preponderance of evidence is that weev is walking, talking POS.
Ron Maimon Mark • 6 years ago see moreThis is not a sticky point against weev, it is a sticky point against you and against that mentally defective jury.
kmansfield envoy510 • 6 years ago see moreMattathias Schwartz: "Over a candlelit dinner of tuna sashimi, Weev asked if I would attribute his comments to Memphis Two, the handle he used to troll Kathy Sierra, a blogger. Inspired by her touchy response to online commenters, Weev said he “dropped docs” on Sierra, posting a fabricated narrative of her career alongside her real Social Security number and address. This was part of a larger trolling campaign against Sierra, one that culminated in death threats. Weev says he has access to hundreds of thousands of Social Security numbers. About a month later, he sent me mine." http://www.nytimes.com/2008...
envoy510 kmansfield • 6 years ago see more@kmansfield: the troll doesn't care what evidence there is, even if it's from weev's mouth. He just wants to troll. But, thanks for the references.
dq Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreCan you post some more of these copy-paste troll messages? If you get enough exposure people will start being able to distinguish the troll messages. That would be nice.
senorroboto Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreHere's a helpful tip for you... if you want people to take you seriously... at all... stop using the language of a twelve year old. :D
Children do things like using allcaps and extraneous tildes.
Adults do things like avoiding logical fallacies and hyperbole, etc.
Matthew Moulton senorroboto • 6 years ago see moreWho said I wanted to be taken seriously? ^__^
On the contrary, having you continue on in stupidity is rather amusing for those like myself. I just believe in "playing fair" so I'll go out of my way to "point it out", but uh... don't expect any more than that. I'm not your online babysitter after all.
Ian Williamson Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreIt's funny to me that every contrarian fucking dweeb online takes this same sad bullied tone.
Matthew Moulton Ian Williamson • 6 years ago see moreOH NO, NOT TEH BULLIES! SOMEONE NEEDS AN ADULT! :D
Ian Williamson Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreNo dude, I mean you sound like a dweeb who must fight petty little arguments inservice of a fragile ego, because he was bullied.
Matthew Moulton Ian Williamson • 6 years ago see morePROJECTION... you know it's not just a fun, big word to say slowly and feel yer lips jiggle, Kiddo. *nods*
Torkil Johnsen Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreIt makes me sad when people use ... and not …
Ellipsis Matthew, use it.God this discussion is fun. Getting down and dirty. Matthew you ispire awesomeness all around you. Love the tinted glasses btw. Meares-Irien?
Mark Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see more"Who said I wanted to be taken seriously? ^__^"
Mission Accomplished. Good work.
Ian Williamson • 6 years ago see moreI don't want you to acknowledge me at all weirdo. Look at how fucking lame you are.
David "Lefty" Schlesinger • 6 years ago see moreWow.
Punctuation and capitalization flames. How original. I've never seen anything like that ever before.
Wow twice.
Cee Bee • 6 years ago see moreIs it possible that trolls are a new form of bully that thrives in cyberspace because of the alienation and distance technology affords them? In meatspace bullies usually possess a physical or social advantage over their more submissive prey, and that is why standing up to them works; There are always easier targets that won't. Flame wars happen when the moderating social norms can be ignored because people are insulated from them. Maybe aggressive trolls like weev could be stopped by reminding them that there can be real world consequences to their actions. If law enforcement is not willing to address the problem, there are always lawsuits. Or you could just hire the Equalizer to kick his yellow ass to the curb.
Matthew Moulton Cee Bee • 6 years ago see moreHere's a helpful tip for you... if you want people to take you seriously... at all... stop using the language of a five year old. :D
CHILDREN use words like "bullying" and "teasing".
ADULTS use words like "harassment", "slander", "libel", "stalking", etc.
Cee Bee Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreI didn't use the words "bullying" or "teasing". Just because you attach a connotative value to the word "bully" doesn't mean others will. Teddy Roosevelt often used the word "bully" as an expletive. Did you think I meant it like that? I doubt it. My word choice was meant to encompass an entire range of behavior perpetrated by a certain kind of person.
This is not like correcting someone's spelling or grammar, I chose a word and I stand by that choice, please save your condescension.
If you want people to take you seriously...at all...instead of critiquing a petty issue of semantics, try adding to the conversation by discussing the point at hand. That is what adults do.
Ron Maimon Cee Bee • 6 years ago see moreTrolls are not really bullies, they are simply removing authority from discussions, so that your status no longer matters, and politeness becomes a deteriment to your argument. This allows quick progress to the truth, and it is the principle that the internet is founded on. This principle is preserved where there are "righteous assholes", like Linus Torvalds for the Linux Kernel mailing list, or Richard Stallman for GNU. Physicists pioneered this anti-authoritative discourse, it was especially popular in the Soviet physics school.
Neighbor Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreso what was the "truth" in Sierra's case? What was the truth we needed to arrive at in the epileptic forum?
Ron Maimon Neighbor • 6 years ago see moreThe truth in the Sierra case is that comment censorship is unacceptable, and she proposed and condoned it, and still does, despite her denials.
The truth in the epileptic forum case is that malicious people can actually induce epileptic siezures using moving gifs.
Both are important to know, even though the method used in both cases was unnecessarily threatening. Ultimately, both threats are easily neutralized and dealt with, while the benefit from disseminating the truth, and allowing it to be disseminated without limitations outweighs other considerations, which have been embellished in this case by effective propaganda.
Erwin • 6 years ago see moreOh my giddy aunt, a few weev minions found this article and came to do their master's bidding.
Ron Maimon Erwin • 6 years ago see moreI am not a weev minion. I never heard about him, except through this article. I came here through a link on facebook and I read it because of the implied threat of internet censorship it contained. I don't give a rat's ass about weev, except to the extent that he is being prosecuted unfairly.
Erwin Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI don't have the amount of time to be on forums and comment sections a lot, so sometimes in mild frustration I express my feelings trying not to single out anyone. I don't even like to use terms like minions or followers because I think most people are smart enough to be along the lines of Andrew by themselves. It's not hard, I read about him before this, including the article where he tells a journalist the he wants to ruin the life of people he thinks are not worthy to be on the internet.
I understand, from the latest This Week In Google, that the case for which he is in jail is unjust. Which means he is not being persecuted for his unjust actions.
This, however is not about Andrew as a person (this is why I used the metaphorically intended weev minions) but about in any way justifying instigating problems for other people than sit back and wash your hands off of it.
One can say Kathy Sierra is a self-important whiner but more than a few lines have been crossed, including publishing personal information and involving her family. This cannot be shrugged of in the name of free speech. Or actually the non-existent freedom from the consequences of what one says. People are still not stopped from doing these reprehensible things. There are consequences though, or there should be.
Trolls do not help an open internet. They censor. It is Andrew's stated purpose: silence people who he deems unworthy. There are so many like him. They don't even care about what they silence. It is about power, about impacting people's life just because you can.
I use Andrew as an example because there are so many like him. He is what a troll is about.
"I hack, I ruin, I make piles of money," he boasted. "I make people afraid for their lives."
http://nymag.com/daily/inte...Ron Maimon Erwin • 6 years ago see moreIt can be shrugged, because she is misreporting what happened, and you are twisting his words maliciously in a context far removed. He made her afraid for her life, but that was mostly her stupidity, his actions carried an extraordinarily miniscule amount of real world danger per unit fear.
Munish Ratanpal • 6 years ago see moreVery brave of you Kathy in writing this and exposing the truly descipable nature of those who assault (yes thats the right word) women on the Net.
Matthew Moulton Munish Ratanpal • 6 years ago see moreNo woman ever has and never will be "assaulted" as badly as a man has in the online world. I'm living proof of that fact. Let me know when someone plasters yer social security number online and starts phoning in anonymous bomb threats to your perceived place of employment...
http://union-bulletin.com/n...
http://union-bulletin.com/n...
...or when they start slashing your tires, or stalking you in the real world, or sending letters to your friends, family and employers to try and get you ruined or fired from your job. Let me know when someone hacks into the NAMBLA website and defaces the front end of it with a picture of a WOMAN... yeah... that's not gonna happen... EVER!
In the online world women are as coddled as can be. You really have *NO* idea at all just how bad, "bad" can get.
Matthew Moulton Guest • 6 years ago see morePROTIP: The term you're looking for is "blackballing" or "blacklisting" and it's as old as humanity itself, kiddo. *nods*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
Try and educate yourself! It's been going on waaaaaaay before the Internet even EXISTED!
As far as ONLINE slander/libel/harassment/attacks... men have ALWAYS had it WORSE than women.
I mean, celebrity nudes... oh noes!
Why don't you go and look up Christian Weston Chandler, kiddo, see if you can't educate yourself (again).
Matthew Moulton Guest • 6 years ago see moreLet me rephrase... I think having your nude photos uncovered and reposted all over the place is a *LOT* better than having a woman manipulate, lie, blackmail and coerce a mentally disabled man into performing degrading, horrific, disgusting acts of self-inflicted brutality...
http://www.sonichu.com/w/im......but that's just me. *shrugs*
facefault Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreMost of the CWC stuff was men pretending to be teenage girls, wasn't it?
Matthew Moulton facefault • 6 years ago see moreUh, no, there were/are just as many WOMEN involved as men. And the majority of the troll jobs required actual women to "play the parts" basically.
Matthew Moulton facefault • 6 years ago see moreMmmmm, Sherrod Degrippo is probably the most "well known" female troll. She founded the original Encyclopedia Dramatica site.
Nigel Lockhart Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreSubject has been diagnosed with an inflated sense of self-worth. Recommend abortion of living privileges.
Nigel Lockhart Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreYou asked for it. Have fun getting more of that.
Matthew Moulton Nigel Lockhart • 6 years ago see moreI'm a writer... I EXPECT that sort of behavior. ^__^
It comes with the job you know.
Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago • edited see moreI haven't finished reading this insanely long diatribe, but what I've read so far is just... laughably absurd/incorrect.
First and foremost, most people in general these days have no idea what "trolling" even is. For most people screaming, "TROLL!" has become a knee jerk reaction to intellectual ineptitude. Generally speaking whenever one loses an argument or winds up looking foolish the urge to scream, "TROLL!" becomes almost insatiable.
If you want to see REAL trolling go look up Bonsai Kitty, or the 9-11 Truther
movement or the recent viral advertising campaign of a Brazilian TV show...
http://www.youtube.com/watc...They even went so far as to put up mock-products and displays in real stores, which was especially hilarious! There's a few related "reaction videos" that are pretty funny as well.
Trolls have also been online since FOREVER and uh, they've actually gotten LESS aggressive in recent years.
The largest flame war in the entire history of the Internet occurred back in the mid 90s and was so absolutely massive beyond measure it quite literally ground the entire Internet to a crawl for weeks on end with "meows"...
http://xahlee.info/Netiquet...Most true trolling forms are either about entertainment, social curiosity/study or for the sake of trying to illicit or bring about some greater social change.
For example with the Meow Wars it was a point of proving that you shouldn't take the Internet so seriously... which was abruptly cemented by essentially BURNING the ENTIRE Internet itself for countless weeks on end just to prove that point.
You also talk about how WOMEN have it harder than men... but you're wrong there as well. MEN are actually targetted with *MUCH* more ferocity than women. I mean, take myself for example. I've had people slash my tires in the real world over "words on a screen". I've had people randomly phone in anonymous bomb threats to establishments that they thought I was associated with. I've had people plaster my gawd damn SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER all over the Internet! Hell, I once enraged a guy to the point where he hacked into the NAMBLA website and defaced the front end of it with pictures of me for about a WEEK straight! o_O
...and you're ~whining~ because your PUBLIC personal information got doxed and because someone made some inconsequential image meme based on some random, inconsequential lie? Oh, boo hoo, poor you, poor little ~woman~ has it ~so~ hard... yeah, right, gimmie a fuckin break you poser class, pity party seeking, hypocrite!
Hypatia Livingston Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago • edited see moreWhat about this peice is factually incorrect? That she was threatened and doxed? Or that WWeev is a neo-Nazi (wait, I don't think she actually mentioned that -- but he is, and proudly still making holocaust joke while sporting a swastika)
Weev is rotten and it's sickening people look up to him and defend him because the US govt jailed him wrongly. You look up to somebody for doxing women and going to jail ?
Or is it his white pride essays that he's started publishing? Congrats jerkface
Matthew Moulton Hypatia Livingston • 6 years ago see moreThe fact that she's trying to turn it into a "womyns issue" and trying to make the claim that women have it worse than men online... they don't. In fact most trolls tend to go a LOT easier on women than they do men.
As far as Weev... who gives a shit? He's not even ~in~ this country anymore and he presently has a "babysitter" provided by the US government... that he's apparently too gawd damn stupid to even realize. He actually thinks she's in ~love~ with him... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA :D
As for your claims that Weev is a neo-Nazi... well, let me put it to you like this... Weev is only a neo-Nazi for as long as he thinks it will BOTHER people like YOU!
You see how that works?
It's essentially "shock humor" when you get right down to it. Claiming something or pretending to be something or to like something simply for the sake of causing lessers to spaz out. It's all about illiciting reactions from people who act on emotions without the benefit of intellect.
Matthew Moulton Guest • 6 years ago see moreOh you can "be bothered"... however that will simply provide them with ENCOURAGEMENT to keep at it. It's called the "Streisand Effect" kiddo... Google it up sometime. ^__^
The point is, even if you ARE bothered by something you should NEVER go out of your way to point it out and to go around wearing it on your sleeve so to speak.
Matthew Moulton Guest • 6 years ago see moreUh, excuse YOU, child, but uh... last I checked *I* was the guy who had his social security number plastered all over the Internet. Last I checked *I* was the guy who wound up with dozens of anonymous bomb threats being shelled out against my perceived place of employment. Last I checked *I* was the guy who got his tires slashed. Last I checked *I* was the guy who got his picture plastered all over the front of the NAMBLA website when frothy little hate mongering nut balls like you script kiddied yer way on into their site.
So you best check YOUR "privilege", Junior.
When it comes to the online world of social/collective harassment, stalking and real world attacks no woman has *EVER* had it as bad as a man and likely never will.
On the contrary, women in general are overly coddled and protected from "the worst of the worst"... to the point where most women perceive simply being doxed as the most ~horrible~ thing that can *EVER* happen to them... meanwhile most men simply go ahead and openly dox themselves simply to get it the fuck on over with cause they ~know~ it's just par for the course.
Ash Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreYou should do a youtube channel where you mansplain stuff for people, so we can all attain this next-level understanding of the universe you seem to have.
Help us, obi wan ke-bro-bi, you're our only hope!
Ash Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreThanks for mansplainin' that for us, bro.
*high five*
*chest bump*Steve Nordquist Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago • edited see moreSo, Trolls to place but not win? 3 slashed and trapped item limit? Oppressive duties from bad info on a person (so we heard you had it tagged a DMCA takedown, etc.) may be queued in /dev/null? in It sure was hard to remember after reading OP whether I hoped Weev would see less Federal prosecution or just be a redeemable person, but his LiveJournal looks civil...falling into a little noise about Aaron Schwartz mis-citing a fake MySpace page thing as being actual Weev and having it act sticky in the wild.
Also, phrasing on 'had people randomly phone in anonymous bomb threats to establishments that they thought I was associated with' s.b. past perfect all through.
Ognar • 6 years ago see moreSince the 60's there has been a continual and increasing amount of refusing to debate ideas rationally and society has turned instead to shouting down the opposition while refusing them an opening to respond. As a result civility is not only lost but despised as weakness, and society has degenerated into a vicious free for all where selfishness is rewarded. All of this has roots in the unwillingness to allow others the freedom to make their own choices if you disagree with the choices they have chosen. The amazing thing is that during this same time period the people who believed they were in the right and were expanding fairness and equality were sometimes winning on the ideal front but then would turn right around and institute rules just as unfair and biased as those they spoke out against and this has lead to a vindictiveness and society wide hatred for opposing ideas that will likely only end at the collapse of our society. This statement may seem to have no relation to this story but I believe it is the root cause of trolling.
Matthew Moulton Ognar • 6 years ago see more60s? I'm presuming you mean 60 BC... ಠ_ಠ
Pretty sure that base level pattern of human behavior has been prevalent in society since the very dawn of mankind itself.
Ognar Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreNo, before the 1960's there was a sense of decorum throughout much of the western world. There was a drive to become part of the establishment that had a set of rules that accorded a certain level of civility that lead to real discourse. It died when the establishment decided to give in to pressure and allow people who refused to abide by those protocols into the discussion. If you look at Saul Alinsky's "12 rules for radicals" you will see the root of today's incivility. Unless you are simply trolling for "lulz", you should be able to admit that these tactics are not conducive to open discourse?
Matthew Moulton Ognar • 6 years ago • edited see more"Sense of decorum"... uh, excuse you...
Salem Witch Trials
Putting animals on trial
The Crusades
The Spanish InquisitionI mean... really...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...That's what I love about you humans though... TEMPORAL BIAS
*nods*
You really can't ~think~ outside of your own very limited timeline, can you? I mean... it just doesn't work for you at all, does it? :D
Ognar Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreI see just trolling for "lulz", thanks for clarifying things.
Matthew Moulton Ognar • 6 years ago see moreOh goody, I can post ~this~ once again...
These days "trolling" has become a knee-jerk reactionary scream to
any information, facts, arguments or other that effectively bitch slaps
you into frustrated, indignant, ineptitude.Don't have a counter argument? Just scream, "TROLL!" :D
...boy I never get tired of that one! ^__^
Nigel Lockhart Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreHow do you propose people counter argument fabricated half-truths, slander and harassment?
When you and your kind start to disappear, no one will bother looking for you.
Matthew Moulton Nigel Lockhart • 6 years ago see moreBy not taking anything seriously.
Really, it's generally as simple as that.
Words only have as much meaning as you CHOOSE to give them.
At the very most, a person can merely provide another person with a "convenient opportunity" to feel or act out a certain way. Ultimately the decision is ALWAYS up to them.
Basically YOU are always in control... but many people are a bit lacking in their emotional needs, so sometimes the urge to "play victim" can override ones better judgement.
FYI, *EVERYONE* is essentially a "troll" in some form or another. This is probably the best means of separating the various types...
http://www.flamewarriorsgui...So... which type do you think YOU are? ^__^
EnigmaMaitreya Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreHum, ok your post is an example of a dead end time line :)
And yes it is sterile and will stop existing when I have extracted what humor can be had from you :)I could not help but notice you were to embarrassed to state your species, let alone give us a picture of it.
Matthew Moulton EnigmaMaitreya • 6 years ago see moreActually I just randomly threw out the first few major moments that popped into my head. I never intended them to represent a "timeline"... I don't think I even put them in chronological order. Really, I could have simply posted just ONE to prove my point.
Also, I never said I wasn't human... although I guess if you want to get technical I'm not 100% ~ordinary~ human on the genetic level. Pretty close though. I'm the result of modern medical science and there's a reason I was given the name, "Matthew"... meaning, "gift from God".
To put it simply... I won the genetic lottery as it were. ^__^
EnigmaMaitreya Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago • edited see moreMatthew Moulton says: "That's what I love about you humans though... TEMPORAL BIAS
*nods*You
really can't ~think~ outside of your own very limited timeline, can
you? I mean... it just doesn't work for you at all, does it?"Your words make it clear your not a human and again are a tad to cowardly to admit it :)
You clearly state you are able to see up and down a time line but may be unfortunately limited to a single time line.
But the reality is your just another bored out of their skull cyber bully wana be using ideas and concepts, making it clear they are cluelss. :)
Have your trolled the post enough to make your daily quota? You should at least put some effort into making your post entertaining. Just sayin
Matthew Moulton EnigmaMaitreya • 6 years ago • edited see moreI have an eidetic memory and unlike most people I'm not limited to linear thinking or single point sagacity... but that doesn't mean I'm not human... well, not entirely anyway. Really, it depends on HOW you want to define the word "human".
I mean, I have one particular mutation in my LRP5 gene... does that make me "not human"? It gives me significantly increased bone density and I have a nifty little bone ridge in the top of my mouth that "normal" humans don't... but aside from that, physically, I'm essentially indistinguishable from "normal" humans... well, I guess decelerated aging technically too, but that's not really outwardly apparent unless you look at my drivers license and see my real age.
Coincidentally I was actually speaking more from a MENTAL standpoint... you see I believe that ANYONE can "evolve" beyond "normal" human thinking/perception. Basically to try and overcome base level cognitive biases.
Primarily through EDUCATION and LEARNING. ;)
Matthew Moulton Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreHere's a good link for you...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
Read those... ALL of those... commit them to memory... and then you can be "better" than "normal" human beings. ^__^
Ognar Ash • 6 years ago see moreWars happen when discussion meets an impasse and words can no longer further the agendas of discordant views, and likely the US has an internal one headed it's way. Even during wars there has usually been an avenue for sorting out some of the differences in a civil manner. Certainly the negotiations that happened through declared neutral countries like Switzerland and Portugal were more civilized than what is happening in Western societies internal political and cultural disputes between opposing groups.
Raven Ognar • 6 years ago see moreAh yes, the civil 1950s. McCarthyism. HUAC. Birchers. And not even the beginnings of the Civil Rights Acts yet, segregation was in full legal force, ask older blacks how civilly they were treated.
Ognar Raven • 6 years ago see moreAre you being obtuse or do you really not understand that the reason MLK was so successful was the decorum of the establishment that allowed the arguments he was making to be discussed. People listened to the opposing side and then discussed it, that no longer happens and is why this country is falsely called the united states, we are no longer united and will very likely end up in a civil war like Rwanda or Yugoslavia. This country once had a common set of values and when hard time hit that was what bound us together, that is no longer the case and in fact we are getting more hateful and vicious to one another. It starts with civility and that ended with the hippies.
Raven Ognar • 6 years ago see more"[T]he reason MLK was so successful was the decorum of the establishment that allowed the arguments he was making to be discussed."
He was thrown in Birmingham Jail, and had to smuggle out a letter -- so much for being "allowed". Other such "discussions" came with firehoses at full strength, police dogs, and for three young voting activists an earthen-dam grave in Philadelphia MS... (where Ronald Reagan would later open his 1980 campaign in a broad wink to the South) ... so much for "the decorum of the establishment" deserving the credit.
As Frederick Douglass had written a century earlier (1857):
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."Ognar Raven • 6 years ago see moreHe was not a part of the establishment he was trying to break into it in the same manner as Fredrick Douglas had before him. And what you then proceed to call discussion is really a riots staged to incite violence so the media would have ammo to sway public opinion, those dog handlers were doing all they could to control the animals which were being taunted by the supposedly innocent youths. (it is well documented) Liberals have become the tyrants and if you think things are getting better rather than worse you are in for a very rude awakening.
Ron Maimon Ognar • 6 years ago see moreMLK was successful because there were others more radical than him behind him, ready and threatening to take up arms.
Ognar Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreThose radicals could have easily been put down through violence if it was wished, however their was the desire to be viewed by other western nations as being a nation of laws, not a mobocracy as we have now become.
Ron Maimon Ognar • 6 years ago see moreThese radicals were taken down by violence, but this required such a massive surveillance system (MKULTRA) that it brought down the last president who supported racial policy. But Panthers were killed while they slept in their beds.
EnigmaMaitreya • 6 years ago see more@Author
You forgot option 4 on your list of why the trolls will always win.
4) Be better at what they do (social engineering, intuitive psychology) than they are.
I am not sure you are seeing this distinction.
There is as you put it, attacking the blahblah for what ever blahblah reason
VERSUS
There is attacking the person behind the screen. That does not require physical attacks it is what you may be mistakenly describing as a "mental virus". It is nothing more or less than simply paying attention to what their theme is then constructing a opposing theme that hits on the same buttons. Noise canceling if you want.
Vintage59 • 6 years ago see moreThe long term view looks brighter. These cretins aren't reproducing because they can't look away from the screen long enough to do so. So, the internet is helping to rid humanity of their DNA.
Ron Maimon Vintage59 • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt's not genetic, you will see that when you understand the internet. Like Germany 1968, we will come make your progeny hate you for your crimes. The difference: these crimes are purely intellectual, nobody really got hurt, so the weapons are purely intellectual.
voiceOfUnreason • 6 years ago • edited see moreJust gotta' be careful of the type of Internet we are creating. Still so young, so much uncharted territory. On another matter, “Freedom of Speech” is a fallacy on the Internet in as much as people think they can sometimes say whatever they like w/o repercussions. In normal day-to-day, you just can't act with that kind of impunity, especially if putting out misinformation. You'll get the crap kicked out of you at best and at worst... well you already know where I'm going with this. There is a check and balance. People, just think.
Christina Coastin • 6 years ago see moreI hope your writing this was as cathartic for you, as my reading it was for me. Thank you.
desolatemetropolis • 6 years ago see moreThis was an excellent article. I think realizing the danger of censorship is a really hard thing to do in the author's position, and I don't just mean the "first amendment" danger, I mean the, "making the problem worse" danger. It takes a lot of perspective to be able to say that.
For people who were computer saavy in the 90s as the internet was becoming "a thing" (read: geeks) the dream was that it was going to become a meritocracy. With access to a universe of facts, and the ability for people to broadcast their ideas absent the approval of establishment mouthpieces, the world would come a democracy of ideas. People with the best opinions, with opinions which were worded well and fit the facts, which took in to account the nuances of the various issues we face in society, would rise to the top. This meritocracy would, if not destroy the Empire Of Bullshit that ran the world, at least vastly improve the public discourse.
It hasn't worked out that way. People don't care about facts or the nuances of a situation. Not only do they not care, they actively reject these things because they get in the way of the most important thing of all: the dopeamine hit that comes from self righteousness. Researching, reading, improving your opinions through discussion...these are encumbrances for the vast majority of people. They want to be right, and they want to be right immediately. The long term satisfaction of having a responsible and well researched opinion is not something that's on their radar screen.
I think this is the reason why otherwise reasonable people will suddenly start supporting people who have done horrible things online. Its the high from taking up the cause of someone who is supposedly misunderstood that people are chasing, not the truth. It's so easy to grab a new issue to comment on and decide a position on it without having any background whatsoever on it, and your brain rewards you for doing so. Factions form and everything snowballs from there. The high only gets better as your faction coalesces and you begin to share delusions of persecution.
The internet has plugged us directly in to the real forces which drive people's thinking, and what we're learning is that our minds operate on a much more basic level than we would like to think they do. It also exposes us directly to sociopaths behaviors and gives these behaviors a megaphone and a population of people who are short on facts, and for whom the stakes are low enough that its not that hard to co-opt them into an army supporting a completely unjust cause.
Another thing that we need to keep in mind, too, is that mental illness does play a role in this. Using the word, "sociopath" isn't always just hyperbole...it's often very true. This is not to excuse the behavior in any way...getting stabbed by someone who is mentally ill is still getting stabbed. It is something to keep in mind as we consider this problem going forward, though. Its incredibly complex, as well, because there's a balance between trying to force everyone think the same way and legitimately addressing mental illness. The real determining factor is that people suffering from mental illness are not happy with the way they are, but getting them to admit that, getting them to understand there is a better way to be, or even coming to understand that they are not happy, is amazingly difficult.
It's also often symptomatic of a culture which is fine with bullying. Many of these people doing the trolling have been bullied in real life and are looking to turn the tables. They feel powerless in, "real life" but online there are different qualities which make one powerful, and they repeat the behavior which was inflicted on them.
"Don't feed the trolls" is advice from another era. It's still very good advice, but it doesn't take into account all the ways that online discourse has become integrated into our lives. Back in the alt.flame days it probably affected people more than they were willing to admit, but for the most part people were either willing participants or just hadn't learned the rules of the internet yet. Either way, it was easier to get away from it and the stakes were (usually) much lower. Things have evolved, though, and (for good or ill) the internet no longer belongs to, "computer people" who should, "understand the rules".
My (long and rambling) point is that I think these types of problems, as well as the more general ways which people choose to be abusive to one another, is a human problem and not an internet problem. The internet is a vehicle which is exposing a part of our true nature which was previously held in check but the constraints of face to face interaction, politeness, etc. Hopefully, exposing this part of our nature will encourage us to examine it and work to change. Looking at history, this will probably be the case even though it is almost impossible to see that as an outcome now. Then again, its also possible to go the other way...to allow everything that is evil and careless within us to rule. There is certainly evidence in history to support that conclusion as well. Only time will tell.
Ron Maimon desolatemetropolis • 6 years ago see moreNo, no. In the 90s, people saw that on the internet, you could say "You turd-mouthed rat-faced skunk-fucker" to a top notch professor, and nobody could stop you! This made it possible to challenge authoritative statements, and it is still possible, so long as trolling is not forbidden.
This heckling is what allows movements to slowly gain power, and it is extremely important to preserve. It also scares people with money, and people in government shitless, because they can't abide mockery, and they want to make sure that writing is sanitized for approval. This is why protecting weev is so important.
Ron Maimon Bob • 6 years ago see moreHe sort of is, although he's still young. He'll grow out of the nonsense.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreMany white supremacists do not, in fact, ever "grow out of the nonsense." George Wallace, for one counterexample, did; but that was after a life-changing event and years in a wheelchair being cared for by a black woman. Others -- Klansmen, neo-Nazis, and diehard segregationists -- have gone to their graves unconverted.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreHe's pretty obviously not a sincere racist, and times are different today, racism is not secretly supported by powerful people anymore, it's mostly powerless people on the margins.
Besides, Wallace was probably not a real racist either, aside from his public face. He was comfortable with black people as a young man. He just supported it politically after he lost an election because he was too integrationist.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "today, racism is not secretly supported by powerful people anymore."
Given the determined GOP efforts to disenfranchise minority voters, leave aside the sheer gulf in police and court treatment of black vs white citizens -- or Latino vs Anglo, in the Southwest -- I would be interested in learning what objective evidence there is for your statement.
If objective evidence has anything to do with it. Or are you a Post-Modernist?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreThe GOP is not oppressing blacks because they are black anymore, they are now oppressing poor blacks because they are poor, and oppressing poor hispanics because they are poor. They are very happy with rich black Republicans, and with Mexican billionaires. This happened in the last two decades, George W. Bush was not at all racist, that's the only good thing you'll hear me say about him.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreAs a historical fact, the majority of blacks in this country are descendants of slaves forbidden even to learn to read -- until (theoretically) 1863 -- and people thereafter segregated into communities given less than their share of tax-supported services (like education) in most of the places they lived at least until the 1960s and in too many cases still today; that they are as a group statistically poorer than whites follows.
To say they are being oppressed because they are poor and not because they are black is circular reasoning. They as a group are being *kept* poor because they are black. To let blacks as a group become prosperous and as politically influential as an equal number of middle-class whites is the nightmare the GOP is fervently trying to stave off.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreYes, I know the historical context, I have no disagreement there. But the modern GOP doesn't want racial segregation anymore, nor do they have a problem with a proportionate mix of powerful people of all races. They want class inequality, not necessarily racial inequality. They would be very happy if 5% of blacks oppressed 95% of blacks in the same exact proportion to the 5% of whites oppressing 95% of whites. They want a rainbow coalition of bourgoisie on top, through their "talent".
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "But the modern GOP doesn't want racial segregation anymore...."
Gosh, then I wonder why so many of them are "neo-Confederates", displaying the Confederate flag, some appearing at Confederate Army re-enactments, one notably even getting photographed in Confederate uniform with black people dressed as slaves....
You do know that the attempts to shut down the federal government are in part coming from exactly that movement, right?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYes, the proportion of those people has fallen to a point where their presence has negligible political impact. I know it doesn't feel that way when they are so threatening and hateful to blacks in America, and one must always be vigilant, but the Confederate symbol was removed from the flag in Virginia and there are no more obstacles to Martin Luther King Day. The South is shedding its neolithic confederate heritage, and the atrocious blind defense of that wretched heritage in media which used to appear everywhere from "Birth of a Nation" to "Dukes of Hazzard" is now completely erased. You don't find any positive representations of confederacy or the confederates anymore, and they are always a political liability. They aren't all dead yet, but under these political circumstances, it won't be long. They certainly are nothing to worry about today, although one must always keep vigilant, you are right, in case they ever start to get positive mention again.
The reenactments are not sympathetic to the confederacy in general, although they used to have this flavor. Now they are more a way of keeping history alive. I don't think you can ignore the change in the South in the last 30 years.
Anyway, these neanderthal Confederates are not the source of Republican appeal, or there would be zero membership in the Black Republican Caucus. The appeal is class inequality, and the doctrine of the superior person, independent of race or gender, just by virtue of the "Will to Power" that you need to rise up the ranks in politics.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Yes, the proportion of those people has fallen to a point where their presence has negligible political impact."
So, to take for example Trent Lott, because he's no longer a Senator and in full public view -- just a lobbyist and think-tanker who isn't in front of the cameras -- you think he has negligible political impact? Nahhh, he just feeds money and ideas to active office-holders....
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreLook, there was opposition to the theory of relativity in 1920, and it involved powerful people. They kicked out Einstein and instituted German physics. Then in the 1940s they went underground. By 1960s, there was no opposition to relativity except for cranks. The Confederacy is dying, let it die, there will always be cranks.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Then in the 1940s they went underground."
Wouldn't have anything to do with Germany's side getting crushed in a war during the 1940s, and the side that adopted Einstein developing (at his suggestion to FDR) and then detonating two atomic bombs in that same war, would it? Or was all that mere coincidence?
...and...
This has exactly what to do with neo-Confederacy? Is a scientific theory or technological development going to disprove or supersede it?
I suppose Obamacare's a step in that direction, but you know, right now they're still trying in Congress to defund it or shut down the government! "No political influence"?!
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt had most to do with Einstein being right about relativity. It's more interesting when it goes in the other direction, where the side that is crushed militarily and politically is the one that is right. For example, with regard to Gentzen, who was a German starved to death after the war, and who had the right position regarding the Hilbert program. Hilbert died (of old age) during the war. In this case, Godel fled to the US, and Godel's position that there can be no good consistency proof of arithmetic was dogma in mathematics until today. But with a little bit of explanation, you can counteract this political disease and show that Gentzen's position is right. Gentzen's position was also close to Turing's, but Turing postwar is outed as a homosexual and driven to suicide (or perhaps dies accidentally, maybe he was even murdered, although that looks unlikely), and also Alonzo Church, but he dies too. So there was no strong counter-push to Godel politically. So what happened? Did Gentzen get suppressed forever? No. There are mathematicians who advocate his program of ordinal analysis today, including Rathjen at Leeds, and I try to do propaganda to get this injustice reversed. Staying in Hitler's Germany does not mean you don't know math. A similar example is Teichmuller's work on his eponymous spaces, which was underground for decades, although I believe he was an actual Nazi.
Neo-Confederacy is a political movement, and politics is not so different from how science proceeds. There is a truth here too, but a more vague ethical truth, and the processes of history reveal it also, and it is irreversible ratchet. That's the "historical God", and it's a part of monotheism too, that's probably the most distinctively Jewish part, and it's not a false proposition.
The defunding of Obamacare has nothing to do with Confederacy, but with free-market fundamentalism, which is a tenet of modern Republicans who abhor the Confederacy just as much as the handful that don't. Considering the history of the Republican party, it's a bit ironic that you would be foisting the Confederacy on them!
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Considering the history of the Republican party, it's a bit ironic that you would be foisting the Confederacy on them!"
Only if you ignore the portion of history between roughly 1964-1972, from LBJ's pushing through the Civil Rights laws and alienating the segregationists like Strom Thurmond in his own party ("Dixiecrats") through Nixon's "Southern Strategy" (starting soon afterward) to recruit them to the GOP... which is how in 1972 Nixon won "more than 70 percent of the popular vote in most of the Deep South (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina) and... over 65 percent of the votes in the other states of the former Confederacy."
Oh, but you say "That's not neo-Confederates, that's Republicans"?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreThat's them trying to exploit racists for political ends, like the Democrats try to exploit drug use for political ends, it's not them accepting racism as a principle. The Republican party tried to appeal to racists in that period, but that really was never that strong an appeal, and it ended with Bush I and Bush II, they were not racist at all, and both have serious non-token African American appointees (Bush I had Colin Powell, Bush II had a whole bunch). Further Bush I understood the principle of civil rights well enough to push through a serious expansion of the notion of what civil-rights bill can do, extending the concept to actually disabled people. this was the American With Disabilities Act, which has been a model for the rest of the world.
Wow, I hate Republicans more than cancer, and you sort of force me into the position of having to defend them through this spurious accusation.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "... and it ended with Bush I and Bush II, they were not racist at all...."
Bush I: The Willie Horton ad.
Bush II: Florida 2000's black disenfranchisement, which Bush II argued for in court. The blatant neglect of NOLA's black population around and after Hurricane Katrina. Bush II contributing and fundraising for neo-Confederate organizations.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreI don't like to dispute these, as I don't support these folks, and I despise Bush II more than any other president, but I really think these are arguable, even though Willie Horton has become a staple example of race-baiting. The content of the ad is Duakakis supporting prison furloughs in Massachussettes, and really it would have worked equally well against Dukakis if Willie Horton had been white and otherwise all the same. I agree that the imagery in the ad was pure race-baiting, that the wording and imagery was playing to racist fears directly, and it was reprehensible. But dude. Prison Furloughs? For lifers? That's a really stupid idea, and it looks like a legitimate attack, if it were done without the racial aspect (just removing Horton's photo would have been sufficient).
I don't believe that the racial undertone had anything to do with Bush I as a president, and I am not sure if he was competent to understand the significance of this stuff beyond the surface level of the ad. He wasn't so subtle. The surface level is fine, it's an attack on a stupid policy.
Anyway It is obvious from his appointments and supported legislation that as a leader his racial stance was not out of line with the mainstream today. It's a terrible ad, but the race baiting aspects are overemphasized in my opinion. A more legitimate example of race-baiting I think is Reagan's welfare queen in a cadillac, or starting his campaign in a confederate stronghold. Reagan did race-baiting more than the Bush's, and I don't think it's a coincidence.
The black disenfranchisement in the election of Bush II was racially discriminatory, but in my opinion it was not particularly racist (I know it sounds like a contradiction in terms), not like housing discrimination, or education funding discrimination, or segregated schooling is racist. This was a pure deiberate disenfranchisement of most likely Democratic voters, like ballot stuffing in 1964 for Kennedy, and it did not have the same racial impact as race discrimination per-se. It was opportunism. I do not consider it a racial attack, but a (highly illegal) political attack using voting statistics to identify populations whose disenfranchisement would impact the opposing party. The neglect of the population after Katrina I do not think is about race at all, rather about class, the rich people in New Orleans wanted the poorer folks removed, regardless of race. The wealthy folks in the higher area neighborhoods New Orleans were diverse too, they weren't all white. I don't support any of this nonsense, but it is simply not true that either Bush was a racist, it simply doesn't pass the smell test.
As for the links between Bush and the Neo-Confederates, it is true but it is as understandable as the link between Obama and Bill Ayers, or marijuana clubs. You don't control everyone you support, and you sometimes support those who help you without supporting their position. Also, Bill Clinton's "Sister Souljah" speech was race baiting in a worse way than any of the Bush material, but he was not criticized for it, because it was clearly political opportunism, and his policies were good for racial harmony.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "The content of the ad is Duakakis supporting prison furloughs in Massachussettes...."
As the New York Times editorial I linked above noted: "Governor Dukakis inherited the furlough program from his Republican predecessor and eventually ended it - too slowly."
The rest amount to your saying -- Well, yes, they discriminated against blacks -- but they were Democratic-voting blacks, or they were poor lower-class blacks! -- and since those traits are likely to be linked for the bulk of the US black population as long as the GOP remains (a) powerful and (b) right-wing, you can keep making that argument. However, please note: the GOP has had opportunities to woo the black voting bloc (make them Republican-voting) but passed on them to keep its "angry white" members happy. For instance, any effort to help blacks escape poverty has met with furious GOP opposition -- which is odd, if they think prosperous blacks would more likely vote Republican! (And remember, before the 1960s shift of Dixiecrats to the GOP, there were a lot more blacks who did vote Republican!) So party, class, and poverty do seem to be more the outcome than the cause of top-to-bottom GOP opposition.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "They certainly are nothing to worry about today...."
Aaannd the US Supreme Court has upheld, 6-3, the Voter ID law of Texas, just in time for the November 4 election to exclude the votes of "roughly 600,000 voters, many of them black or Latino" (in the estimation of the federal judge whose ruling they overturned).
But that law is not the product of neo-Confederates, because there are none in Texas. Nope. None. How do I know that? I *guessed* it, because of Ron Maimon's assurances.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreThat's not neo-Confederates, that's Republicans, following the example of Kathleen Harris in Florida. They know statistics and they know who they'll be driving away from the polls. Democrats, when they could, would stuff ballots too in the other direction, and did in 1964, using union power.
I didn't say there were no Neo-Confederates, I said they were few an they have little political power. This is true. They might have more power in Texas, considering the horrible politics in that state.
The ID laws, however, do not exactly have to be unconstitutional in any interpretation, you can argue both ways. This Supreme Court is just literal minded and myopic, and ignores the intended discriminatory effect of any measure, only looking at the letter of the law to see if there is discrimination.
Mark Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWell, so, he is demonstrably a liar and a committed misogynist, even now threatening women in tech with retribution. But... At least he's not a sincere racist. He's an insincere racist. This also adds to his gravitas?
Ron Maimon Mark • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt doesn't add to any gravitas. He is fighting the very notion of gravitas through these actions.
Mark Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreThat's simply not true.
The poster is right.
Weev, and his ilk, are not a 'movement' (except the bowel kind). And does a professor see a well-reasoned argument like 'You turd-mouthed rat-faced skunk fucker' and somehow be swayed? The argument is over because there isn't one. Trolls disqualify themselves immediately by doing that. Oh yeah. I am glad the mama's basement dwelling, misogynist pig fucker went to prison. How can you argue with logic like mine?Ron Maimon Mark • 6 years ago see moreThe professor isn't swayed, but his authority is diminished and the truth wins out. For an example, here is an extremely important famous flame-fest from computer science: http://oreilly.com/catalog/...
The authoritative position was "microkernels are superior". Linus Torvalds' position is "No, they're not. Poopyface." Linus won, because he was right, and because he gave the official position the zero credibility it deserved. Nobody takes microkernels seriously anymore.
Ilja Jalkanen Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI expected to enjoy a "famous flame-fest" with the raping and the ronpauling and the threatening with grievous bodily harm and the joyous recounting of a muslim invasion but all I got was a debate with smileys.
False advertising. :( :( :(
Ron Maimon Ilja Jalkanen • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt's not false advertizing--- this was one of the most offensive posts in academically important writing, and it would be thrown out in any forum which disallowed trolling. This is what is really being threatened by linking trolling with violence.
You simply don't know how many powerful people staked their reputation on microkernels, and how offensive and troll-like Linus Torvalds seemed. He sounded like an out and out bitter young man with a complete lack understanding of computer science. This was only belied by the fact that he was objectively right, and he had just written the working and obviously revolutionary Linux kernel.
He maintains this honesty, you can google 'nVidia fuck you', it is essential. Another such righteous asshole is Lubos Motl. They used to come from the left (like me), but now they come more from the right, I don't care where they come from, I support them either way. I suppose the conservatives are trying to conserve the internet heritage from the 90s, when it was radical.
If you would like a more foul-mouthed example, this is the best: http://www.womynkind.org/sc... . It might have been the first real modern troll in history.
Ilja Jalkanen Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI'm not superfamiliar with all of this so I've got a few questions and miscellaneous thoughts.
1) Microkernel-link was, to me at least, a simple of example of debate. I don't know the tone it might've carried across back in the day but that is the way the whole discussion reads today. I frequent forums pertinent to my profession and on those forums the discussion reads like the one you linked. Basically, it's all debate with opinions, anecdotes and above all, arguments.
2) The forums I spoke of are frequented by professionals in my field and the opinions vary a lot. Still, I've yet to see anybody kicked out simply for debating an unpopular view with vigour and balls. Moderating takes place in cases of obvious bullshit and pure shit-slinging and hostility. The level of the exchange does not suffer. Is it common, in your experience, to get kicked out discussions on professional forums for debating a new/weird/marginal/??? viewpoints? Does this happen a lot?
3) I find it very hard to cull information or insights from comment sections of major news outlets. Signal-to-noise ratio is unbearably poor, as comment sections are filled with anonymous idiocy. Not, mind you, rude and provocative well thought out arguments, but just bullshit. It irks me to no end and has in effect led to my rarely reading the comment sections any more. I find myself gravitating towards political and professional blogs that are moderated with a heavy hand allowing for debate, new ideas, and downright rows without having to waddle through the inane bullshit. I assume that you don't oppose the freedom of individuals to moderate (or censor, if you wish) the comments on their own blogs? What exactly is the censorship you oppose? The governmental kind? What is that exactly?
4) What is trolling? It seems to me by the examples you provided that trolling is anything and everything and nothing. What is it exactly? I've always understood the term to mean someone who spouts stupid shit in order to rile up the gullible and less experienced forum-goers. I've never associated the term with any actual debate or art or subversive action or education or challenging the establishment or any real shit of that sort. Am I wrong?
Ron Maimon Ilja Jalkanen • 6 years ago • edited see moreThe examples I give are what people really do. The examples in the article are made up exaggerated threats to chill them from doing that.
I have been kicked out Wikipedia, Stackexchange, and Quora, and there is only one or two blogs or discussion places where I have not been blocked. The discussion here is a typical amount of rudeness from me. The real issue is forcefully holding a position, never backing down. In the case of Quora, it was in challenging a personal sob-story directly, to make sure it was honest, and to remove it's propaganda power so that the events of the Boston Bombing can be evaluated with neutrality. All of these are trolling in the broad sense, and this is what is really under attack here, with weev as a poster boy for why "something needs to be done about this".
Zoe B Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreAh, so that's what up with your ridiculous-on-its-face position that the internet isn't real life so doesn't count and your inability to accept reasoned logical arguments that show you're wrong: you're bitter. Got it.
Ron Maimon Zoe B • 6 years ago see moreI'm not bitter, I know that trolls always win eventually, so I am fine. I am trying to protect the trolling process as widely as possible, so that the time-lag is shorter, that's all.
Ilja Jalkanen Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI don't know, man. That sounds very implausible. What you just said read quite literally as "through no fault of my own the door slams in my face everywhere I go". I find this hard to believe based on my own experiences with people "forcefully holding a position, never backing down" on online forae.
Seriously: if this is, as you say, the tone you would usually use in an online discussion, it is hard to believe what you claim. Albeit repetitive, you are civil. It is therefore possible that you are lying or that your version of events is exaggerated for dramatic effect.
""""All of these are trolling in the broad sense, and this is what is really under attack here""""
This seems to be the crux of your issue with this whole debacle, right? I disagree with this idea strongly. You are encompassing a whole range of activities, most of which already have acceptable and common-use names (not in need of redefining), under the title of "trolling". You are trying to morph the word into meaning whatever you need it to mean at a given time. This is confusing and, ironically, detrimental to your cause.
By elevating shit-slinging you are bringing down debate. By lumping pure unadulterated idiocy together with art you are actively trivialising true calls for discussion through provocation. That's counter-productive.
You've been trying to distinguish trolling from stalking and cyberbullying and calling for the categorical separation of online and real world. Good. I can agree to a large extent. But if trolling is not any of these base and (potentially) criminal activities it certainly is not one of the nobler ones, as you would like to believe. There is already a good practise in dealing with trolls: swing the ban hammer swiftly and with no remorse.
Is weev in prison because of his trolling? Isn't he in prison because of the AT&T hack? Was it the group mentality and lynch mob of this comment section that put him in prison?
Raven Ilja Jalkanen • 6 years ago see moreIlja Jalkanen to Ron Maimon: "You are trying to morph the word into meaning whatever you need it to mean at a given time."
Well, yes. As he's said, he's a Marxist. The Marxist definition of truth isn't a statement of how things actually are ("there is no objective truth"); it's a statement that serves the cause. Which means the truth can be whatever you need it to be at any given time. That's why Marxists never lie -- as they define it.
Oddly enough, this also describes Post-Modernist philosophy.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreThis is not Marxism you are describing. Marxism is compatible with objective truth, the word "Marxism" I am using in the broad sense of identifying power structures in society to subvert, not in the sense of a command economy, which I do not support.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreThat's a differentiation of goals, not methods.
As to the accuracy of the above definition, cf. the very first line of this Marxist Lexicon:
praxis: the Marxist definition of 'truth': claims are true not because they "correspond" to the "way things are" or because they "cohere" with other ideas we already believe; they are true when they prove themselves to be instruments for social liberation. ...
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreFirst, I am not a Marxist, I'm just giving Marx academic credit for authority bashing. Second, that's not my position regarding truth, I don't make it out to be fungible. Third this not what "praxis" has ever meant in any discussion I read (it usually just meant doing stuff, but I'm not a Marxist).
Ron Maimon Ilja Jalkanen • 6 years ago • edited see moreOF COURSE IT'S MY FAULT!! I expect it to happen, this is the DEFAULT EXPECTED REACTION to forcefully advocating an unpopular true position. YOU WILL GET KICKED OUT. It is just what happens when you have a troll-police harassing trolls.
It is also YOUR DUTY, asshat. to do this online. So if you aren't trolling, you should be ashamed.
Ilja Jalkanen Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more"Troll-police" :D :D :D :D :D :D : D
You mean private, free individuals or businesses exercising their freedoms in freeing their own forums and webpages from unwanted content?
So let me see if I'm getting this straight: you just want to able to shit on everything and anything without any repercussions in the name of freedom, right? That is what you are saying, in fact.
All this talk of censorship and government and power and authority in order to evoke fear of some nameless and faceless oppression just to cover the simple fact that you are quite free to debate whatever you like wherever you like until the proprietor gets tired of your shit and then, lo and behold, you are fee to take your shit to a blog or a webpage or a forum of your very own! A place where you can freely advocate anything your heart desires (within the confines of the law).
There is an old Russian saying: "There's no use trying to break down an open door."
There is no troll-police. There is no effort to shut down your freedom of starting a little place of your own to shout your views from the digital rooftops. I mean, look at the issue of climate change or vaccinations or homeopathy: there is simply no end to websites and blogs dedicated to the most unpopular and "true" views on the subjects. Don't like it? Start your own.
Trolls shall troll. The ban hammer shall swing. Freedom (never suspended) remains. Stop trying to redefine words, clouding the issues, and robbing precious focus from the real issues such as the draconian punishments for fairly harmless hacking.
Ron Maimon Ilja Jalkanen • 6 years ago • edited see moreI don't expect online private places to be completely uncensored, because there is spam and crazy illegible stuff, as well as the need to keep discussions on topic. These are the legitimate reasons to delete comments.
The illegitemate reasons are for denying someone authority, and this is includes abrasive behavior. Without the authority removing heckling, you don't get anywhere close to the truth, instead it's all feel-good stories that reinforce the community's recieved wisdom.
I don't care about private businesses which restrict speech, I just ignore them. There are places which still do not restrict it,
Ilja Jalkanen Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI had to google you. I think I understand your position a lot better now.
My point stands uncontested: you are free to lead through example and start a place of your own. You are free to advocate your issues in a no-holds-barred environment. This freedom remains and that is true.
The circles in which you debate and move (and are banned from) are highly specialised, scientific and should conform to a higher standard of an adversarial process. This is true.
HOWEVER, and this is very important, everything you say starts making sense the minute we acknowledge the fact that YOU ARE NOT A TROLL. Whatever tone you might use to pontificate, you are not a troll. Period. By standards understood by the general populace you are not a troll. Clinging to some archaic definition of the word in some back-in-the-abacus-days context is moot.
I don't understand your need to define everything past and present as "trolling in the broader sense". You are not a troll. Getting banned from science forums does not make you a troll. It makes you a real life Sheldon Cooper. Not a troll.
Guest Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreYou are a real world Sheldon Cooper with a beautiful mind! I understand your point much better now. They are quite mean to you, aren't they? Keep up the fight, brother.
Remember: when everybody around you tells you that you are wrong it is always because they are wrong and just too stupid to realise it. There is never the slightest chance that it might be you who is in the wrong. Peer review is for kittens.
Ron Maimon Guest • 6 years ago • edited see moreHi Guest dude. "Sheldon Cooper" is an (offensive) caricature of me and all other physicists. If I had to guess, I would guess the model for Sheldon was either Lubos Motl or the physicist character in Woody Allen's movie with that bald Seinfeld creator. Unlike Sheldon, Allen's character is not a caricature.
Sheldon Cooper is out and out mockery by the bourgeoise media of the honest no-nonsense physicist discourse, which is extremely rude and direct, by linking it to psychopathology. For the same essential reason, this article is trying to link trolling to psychopathology. "Trolling" is simply physics culture exported to the rest of the world, it's what good physicists have been doing to each other since at least the 1920s, and it's how the field stays honest and makes progress.
They don't have any mental disorders or autism. Although I know it's hard to believe, physicists behave that way ON PURPOSE, to make sure that bullshit doesn't take over their field. It's also kind of Soviet, as in the Soviet Union, bourgeoise phoniness was not necessary (you needed other kinds of phoniness), and direct challenge of authority (not government authority, your boss's authority) was common.
Negative peer review is another form of trolling, except hidden away so that you never see it. I don't like private peer review, I prefer public peer review, because private peer review leads to something like this getting rejected: http://www.physicsoverflow.... (it was rejected), and something like this getting accepted: http://www.physicsoverflow.... (nonsense that cited the right people). The fix is public peer review, where these mistakes are automatically corrected. That's what the internet is for.
The reason one needs firm protection for what people identify as abusive behavior is because there are cases where one is NOT wrong, and yet people persist in thinking that one is, because of a cloud of authority. A few well placed insults removes all authority, and then after the insults start to fly, both sides present their case, and the objective truth becomes obvious to everyone.
Without the insults, there is no particular reason for truth to win, only authority matters. With insults, it can't help but win, because only accuracy matters. That's the lesson physicists learned, and it's why we ran circles around all the other academic fields and still do.
Guest Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreAn honest asshole willing to admit his mistakes is a rare find. Seriously, keep up the fight.
Raven Ilja Jalkanen • 6 years ago see moreIlja Jalkanen: "What is trolling?"
Not to address the activity itself (but think of "trolling for fish" - dangling a hook in the water and waiting to see who bites, then reeling them in); just discussing the context of where it occurs....
Until this comment-thread, when the term's been used in online fora, the usage I've seen referred to online context. "Going RW" [Real World] on someone was a breach of protocol; that crossed the line from "trolling" to "cyberstalking".
Now Ron Maimon is trying to blur the line, trying to cover all that weev did under the category of "trolling". If he succeeds, I don't think he'll like the outcome.
"Hacker" used to have a good meaning: someone who would plunge in and hack away at the jungle of code (or any other tangle of complexity) until a path was cleared, or even until it was all a neatly trimmed garden. These were the model train builders who filled rooms, who became the wiring experts you sent under the computer room floors for a day at a time. The TRS-80 hobbyists who could make their machines do what the designers couldn't, or the mainframe-via-teletype programmers who lived at the computer labs on coffee and vending machine junk food while optimizing code, unpaid.
Then Milwaukee's own 414 club (named after the telephone area code) got caught cracking corporate computer systems by phone. When interviewed by a newspaper, the teenaged leader didn't call it "cracking" -- he said, "Oh, we were just hacking." And that term hit the nationwide, no, worldwide news with the definition that "cracking" also had.
So after that, anyone who proudly called himself a hacker was immediately looked at (by anyone who had only just learned the word from the news) as a criminal. People had to stop using the term of themselves or risk losing job offers.
What Ron is doing, if he succeeds, is going to equate "trolling" with "cyberstalking".
If everything weev did was just "trolling", then what truly horrible, foul criminals trolls must actually be, and why should they be allowed online at all -- to incite death threats against innocent people in the privacy of their own homes?
"Hey, Mom, I'm just gonna troll this newsgroup..." -- "Why, Franklin Emerson, you come out of there this instant! Your father and I are not going to tolerate any such criminal behavior in this house! You are going into a boot camp for juvenile delinquents!"
No. Let us keep a clear distinction (and difference) between "trolling" and "cyberstalking".
Ron Maimon Ilja Jalkanen • 6 years ago see moreYou bring up really important points.
The censorship I am talking about it real, but it can only be seen when you have a new correct idea that sounds stupid! Unfortunately, it's not like I'm an oracle and can give you countless examples of this, but I can tell you an easy one where you can review the evidence quickly and come to be certain that it is simultaneously certainly correct and completely dismissed--- abiogenic petroleum origin. If you try to introduce this idea in geological circles, you are simply heckled into silence, but I assure you that it is correct, and you don't have to take my word for it, it was dogma in the USSR past 1968, after a grueling nearly 20 year debate. The Soviets actually openly debated this (unfortunately in Russian), and came to the right conclusion, and the West just sticks with the dogma. You can review the chemistry evidence in a few days, there is also Gold's book "The Deep Hot Biosphere" which explains this.
This thesis simply can't be debated in the literature. But online, of course, no one can stop you. So it should be easy to explain to people online, right? But the fact is that if you wish to debate this online, and you want to not be quickly made to look like an idiot, you have to forcefully attack the opposing viewpoint, because you will immediately be flooded with ignorant counter-information, most of which is misinformed misreadings of the literature. For instance, people will explain that kerogen is routinely broken into petroleum today. This is not true, as the thing that is broken into petroleum is shale-oil, which is only called "kerogen" by convention with the biogenic theory. In the abiogenic theory, this is not kerogen at all, but hydrogenated ultra-heavy petroleum, actual kerogen has nitrogen in it, which betrays its biological origin (and also oxygen, of course, which is absent in petroleum). Similarly, you will hear that the isotope ratios are consistent with biology (they aren't, they are consistent with small pore migration), that there are biomarkers (these are bacterial residues from archaea), that there are fossils in coal (the fossils were there before the rock turned to coal), that the He has an explanation (it doesn't, as the He concentrations can range to 1000 times the surrounding rocks), that the chemical path to petroleum is understood (a lie only said by ignorant people), and so on, a whole bunch of nonsense, but all of it is backed up with the pseudo authority of misunderstood references and opinions of big shots.
Because this is a disputed topic where all the (Western) experts are demonstrably wrong, it is impossible for anyone with the correct scientific hypothesis to get heard using any standard accepted method of debate. The best way to get heard in this circumstance is to simultaneously rebut the arguments, and present the case disrespectfully, so that the authority of the experts is diminished with each rebuttal. Then once you rebut all the points, you are done, you win. The insults serve to remove the authority from the experts, so that the only authority that remains is that which is supported by factual evidence. This is unfortunately the only effective way to debate an ossified point where all authorities are wrong. It is codified as a rule of physics discourse.
At the start of this process, you look like the most unconstructive of idiots, and a complete troll (you are). But this is what happens when you have an unpopular idea, you always look like an idiot, whether it is correct or incorrect. This is the "Galileo problem", and it is fixed with trolling. Galileo also fixed it with a form of trolling, Simplicio is mocking the Aristotelians. At the end, you simply look like you were right, and your victory was inevitable. But it was not at all inevitable, you don't get anywhere without trolling.
Anyway, what "trolling" means in an internet context is a stream of personal insults directed at an individual which hurts their feelings. It is mockery which removes or denies authority to an individual. An example would be "You mental reject, of course the biomarkers in petroleum come from underground archaea". This type of discourse is forbidden in professional journals, at least when the other side is powerful. It is tacitly accepted in chit-chat and in referee reports when the other side is powerless ("Yeah, you know, he's one of them abiogenic yahoos", "Those guys are crazy", "They don't have a leg to stand on", etc). Online, trolling quickly levels the playing field, allowing the ideas to battle on equal footing. Then the correct idea quickly wins, and you're back to normal.
The article makes the subversive authority denying practice of trolling look like a form of personal harrassment, by focusing on actual harrassment, and ridiculously linking it "trolling".
People can moderate, sure, but it is best if this is minimal, and self-correcting. I am active on a site called "physicsoverflow", and the way that physicsoverflow deals with it is "spam is deleted, irrelevant stuff is deleted, and anything with physics content is preserved, although if it is off the wall, it is moved to chat" This model might work in greater generality.
Swashbucklr • 6 years ago see moreweev is a terrible excuse for a human being, and I think less of the people who try and defend him. Remember, you are defending a guy with a Nazi swastika on his chest. It's like you are starting with Godwin's law and going from there.
(p.s. the Nazis were the bad guys.)
kmansfield Swashbucklr • 6 years ago see moreHe's human being with some terrible ideas and he did some bad things, but winning people over to your side requires that you engage with the arguments, even the terrible ones.
kevdog kmansfield • 6 years ago see moreIt sometimes requires that you ignore the bad arguments. To stick with the current theme. Engaging in an argument with a Holocaust denier is to give them credibility they don't deserve.
Raven kevdog • 6 years ago • edited see moreOn the other hand, sometimes the deniers have to be engaged, precisely to deny them the credibility they would otherwise claim by default.
See Mel Mermelstein [v Institute for Historical Review]
and Irving v Penguin Books and LipstadtRon Maimon kevdog • 6 years ago • edited see moreThis is false! How do you debate holocaust deniers? You do it LIKE A TROLL.
You say "Here, asswipe, are the deportation records from Hungary. Here, turd-fucker, is the testimony of a Treblinka guard" and so on and so on, you can respond to all their arguments completely, while at the same time denying them any respect or credibility!
That's EXACTLY why trolling is so important to preserve--- you can use it to knock down arguments WITHOUT giving them authority or respect as you are doing so.
It is exactly for this reason that the internet killed holocaust denial. The centers for Holocaust remembrance were able to respond to the points with enough disrespect to make it clear they did not deserve much respect.
It is for exactly the same reason that you need to preserve freedom of speech online, because, in other situations, not the holocaust, the holocaust deniers are the powerful ones, and the persons trying to call attention to the thing are dismissed. You must not rob them of the tools of disrespect an mockery, even using the most offensive trollish language you can imagine, and then some!
Neighbor Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreso what was Sierra doing that can in any way be compared to Holocaust denial? How was she the powerful, and the troll the oppressed?
Don't you see how if trolling can "kill" holocaust denial it can "kill" something more positive? Maybe something the troll doesn't understand, or that is simply none of the trolls fucking business?
You say it "killed" something right after you said it was harmless. What about the forums for epileptics? That wasn't harmless and haad nothing to do with speaking truth to power.
Ron Maimon Neighbor • 6 years ago see moreThe forum for epileptics is simply a far-fetched excuse for internet censorship. It is pure propaganda.
Trolling can "kill" ideas in the abstract. It can only do so when the ideas are wrong, and deserve to be killed in the abstract. It feels violent to those ideas, of course, but it is not violent towards any persons.
Trolling cannot kill positive things, it has never done this. Trolling against string theory can be countered by two minutes of trolling for string theory. The trolling of the lynch mob sicced on weev here can be cured by a few minutes of trolling against it, as I am trying to demonstrate.
The freedom to speak without censorship of any kind is the important thing to allow truth to emerge. Here, I can't hardly say s*** or m****f***** without getting the comment "awaiting approval by moderators".
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Trolling cannot kill positive things, it has never done this."
So you see NO positive value in Kathy Sierra online, at all. None.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreI don't know, she is just the same as anyone else, she can post her nonsense. She wasn't killed by trolling, she was temporarily silenced by doxxing. This is why doxxing is wrong. It just isn't the same kind of wrong as threatening murder or rape, it's a second-degree kind of evil.
Ron Maimon Swashbucklr • 6 years ago see moreHe has a swastika tattooed on his chest. The folks persecuting him have a swastika tattoed on their hearts.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreYou have a strange definition of "persecution": stating outright what he did, and not covering it up.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreOne day, stupid one, you will understand what persecution means. It's exactly what you are doing here, in this comment thread. You are tearing apart a character you don't know based on a boast of doxxing you can't evaluate, through a lady who is purposefully and maliciously linking it to heinous crimes like murder and rape by suggestion and innuendo. It is a trial of sorts, and you are revealing yourselves to have lost your minds and lost your souls.
He should be left alone, and all of you should crawl back into your holes. He should also say "sorry" to the lady for having done that bad thing, and she should say "it's ok, it's all over now."
Mark Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreHe probably is alone, unless he is double bunked in his cell. And by troll logic, nothing we do here is for anything 'except the lulz'. So, yeah. He is an ignorant pig fucker. I should visit him and deliver a turd in person. Can someone post what prison he's in?
Ron Maimon Mark • 6 years ago see moreHe's not in prison anymore, he was released because he didn't do anything. He's in the "Levant" learning "Arabic".
LP • 6 years ago see moreWow, I'm so sorry to hear about this. Thank you for writing about your experience. That is awful and disturbing, to say the least.
NegroSven • 6 years ago • edited see moreKathy,
What is the deal with the hard on for Weev? I mean posting his photograph twice? Did he destroy the careers of people you knew? Besides being too long, this article was posted with malintent. Do you really expect people to take time out their lives to read a shoddy assault click-bait piece?Swashbucklr Guest • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou are posting here because you are TROLLING FOR ATTENTION too.
And before you reply, so am I. We are all commenting here because we want the attention for our ideas or ourselves. Getting angry with someone because they are using the Internet for the same purpose you do is foolish.
Matthew Moulton Swashbucklr • 6 years ago see moreI hate to break this to ya, but we're ALL trolls...
http://www.flamewarriorsgui...
The only question is... which one are YOU? ^__^
Swashbucklr Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreTL, DR. :P
No, seriously, that's a really big list. But I'm bookmarking it because it's probably funny.
Matthew Moulton Swashbucklr • 6 years ago • edited see moreYup, it's very funny... and very old. It was created back in the late 90s. In fact it's one of the oldest websites presently still on the grid.
RDH NegroSven • 6 years ago see moreYou are a moron. Wired posted his picture. Not Kathy. Her original blog post was text only. Personally I'm really sick of looking at the bastard.
Here is the link to the original post:
http://seriouspony.com/trou...Matthew Moulton RDH • 6 years ago see moreEven if she didn't post the pictures she MENTIONED him... repeatedly and continually... which is the REASON Wired added in the pictures.
FunkyMonk Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreYes how dare she mention the person who enabled abuse against her by publishing and spreading malicious lies alongside her personal information.
P.S. Seeing as you like to tell others on here how to communicate you should be aware that capitalising words in a sentence doesn't come across as emphasis, rather it comes across as unhinged.
FunkyMonk Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreBut but you repeatedly tell us that threats made online, and there's no threats here anyway just giving him a taste of his own medicine, don't matter so what are you specifically so concerned about?
Ron Maimon FunkyMonk • 6 years ago • edited see moreSorry scratch that--- threats made to kathy don't matter, but threats made to weev do, because he's good-good and she's bad-bad.
Morgan • 6 years ago see moreWow, the huge downside of anonymous internet users. There has to be a business case for realid system on comment boards. Too many mentally ill people who enjoy the suffering of others out there.
Matthew Moulton Morgan • 6 years ago see moreWe already have that... it's called THE REAL WORLD! Why don't you try and get outside and go blow the stink off yerself! :D
The problem, the REAL problem is doorknobs who can't function correctly like "normal" human beings in the REAL WORLD. Essentially they're "socially deficient" if you will, so they wind up retarding back into the pseudo-reality of the Internet to try and compensate for what they can't get like normal people do in real life.
That practice in turn leads to all ~sorts~ of horrific outcomes... for example killing yourself because you got into an "argument" with a poorly programmed chat bot that caused you to feel all undone, depressed and defeated.
Bottom line is... check yer emotional baggage at the fuckin door! So long as you do that... mmm... yer not really gonna have too many problems in the online world.
Basically, just take EVERYTHING online with a GRAIN OF SALT! *nods*
Matthew Moulton dq • 6 years ago see moreAhhh, but if it discredited itself on the point of not taking anything seriously then you would have to then take it seriously... see how that works? It's like dividing by zero! :D
Or, to put it another way... you can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest... honestly. ^__^
Raven Morgan • 6 years ago see moreAnd yet, Morgan, people still need anonymity for perfectly valid and non-malicious reasons, like personal safety (e.g. battered wives living in shelters, corresponding on support-group fora); and confidentiality (group discussions of undisclosed-offline health issues, AODA or AIDS or gender-change or whatever). Perhaps the boss would not approve of one's politics, religion, or social groupings -- if he could link one's real name to one's postings. Anonymity can be innocently self-protective.
gordo • 6 years ago see moreIt's amazing how many dots can be connected in a sick mind. Thanks for the article.
Raven Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreA subset of which is pareidolia, such as seeing animals or faces in clouds.
Well, pattern-recognition from partial data is a survival skill. Doubtless our ancestors often needed to recognize animals in the undergrowth from hints through the leaves, or the faces of family/friends vs. enemies even in the shadows. Pareidolia is the result of that skill being triggered by random data.
Van Gogh has already been mentioned once on this forum....
DChristianson • 6 years ago see morehttp://www.psychologytoday.... Trolls are terrible people. Don't give them respect or praise. They need tremendous psychological help in order to not do harm to other people.
Matthew Moulton DChristianson • 6 years ago see moreSo then which type of troll are YOU then?
http://www.flamewarriorsgui...
:D
EVERYONE online is a "troll" in some capacity or another.
KiteFlyer89 DChristianson • 6 years ago • edited see moreSelf-described Internet trolls also self-describe as psychopaths on Internet test? A shocking revelation.
TheBrett • 6 years ago see moreWhy is this type of behavior - going beyond angry e-mails and tweets to actually carrying out coordinated harassment, hacking, and threat campaigns - not being treated like the domestic terrorism that it is? It should never have taken this long for the FBI to start investigating the threats made against Sarkeesian, and they should be investigating who is organizing these campaigns in general.
Matthew Moulton TheBrett • 6 years ago see moreThey do, actually. This is probably the earliest known example...
http://www.washingtonpost.c...
He served time in a federal prison for doing it! :D
More recent cases include Jason Fortuny:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...Who was sued and wound up having to pay $74,252.56 in damages.
A lot of people though (like myself) just don't take the bother. I mean... ultimately there's not a whole lot of REAL damage that they can do and even the damage they can do is usually pretty minimal or easily dismissed.
Most of them too are just "young and stupid" so a lot of people like myself just take pity on them. Most of them wizen up quite a bit once they get older and, the ones that don't... well, they usually wind up like Jason Fortuny or Ryan Cleary:
Anders Engsted • 6 years ago see moreThe internet is not your hugbox. If you get harrassed on the internet, turn it off.
As for #GamerGate, it's about journalistic integrity, journalists taking sexual favours from "poor, victim, feminist game devs" in trade for good reviews on horrible games. Fucking your way to the top is apperently equality in the eyes of feminazis on the internet, it's a disgrace to man kind any anyone who fights for actual equality.TL;DR
This article is meaningless as you ignore facts, you deserve the hate you get.facefault Anders Engsted • 6 years ago • edited see moreGrayson never reviewed Depression Quest, and the sole article in which he mentioned it was written before his and Quinn's relationship.
The "facts" you're claiming are bullshit. That's why every actual journalist who looked at gamergate thought it was motivated by misogyny.
Matthew Moulton facefault • 6 years ago see moreYes, that certainly explains why Gamasutra is losing advertisers left and right...
Matthew Moulton Guest • 6 years ago see moreSorry kiddo, but advertisers don't work that way. They don't base huge monetary decisions on "whining" or "harassment", on the contrary they actually hire ANALYSTS who basically go through and rip the entire situation all apart in every other direction YOU can't even consider and then come up with decisions based on pure facts.
It is a *FACT* that Zoe Quinn is a disingenuous little mallet head suffering from histrionic personality disorder who has a loooooong and sordid history of using overly obvious manipulation and attempted social engineering in order to try and facilitate her own personal interests as well as to try and screw others over on a whim.
PROTIP: If you want people to actually take your side of the story seriously... get yerself a new spokes-idiot... preferably one that HASN'T burned HUNDREDS of bridges with professionals and business entities alike.
Matthew Moulton Guest • 6 years ago see moreI see, so you're the type who abuses your inner child and rapes them into a closet to the point where you build up a fantastic level of repressed self-hatred which eventually drives you to lash out at others online with projectionistic desperation. ^__^
Ron Maimon Guest • 6 years ago see moreYes, and precisely at stake is the ability of you to shut him up. You must not be given this authority, so that he is as free to express his opinion as you. His opinion is not particularly enlightened, but yours is worse.
brett101 • 6 years ago see moreThis is what is great about the internet, it forces us to confront the ignorance in society that we would otherwise ignore. I'm sorry for your suffering but thank you for taking a stand!
lady • 6 years ago see moreI am forever surprised by the number of small-minded, mean, hateful people on the net hiding behind their anonymous screen names attacking people rather than their ideas. It would be amazing to find sites that require ideas be the point of all discussions. Where trolls must be reported and banned immediately. Mash them up and sent them back to the primordial ooze where they belong.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Tiernoc • 6 years ago see moreHrm, As someone who hasn't followed much (if any) of this overarching story, and is barely familiar with the NAME of 'weev' I found this article was missing a LOT of necessary context that would allow me to make sense of the author's claims.
Hopefully it was more coherent to those of you who are familiar with the whole story!
Matthew Moulton Tiernoc • 6 years ago see moreTo be honest, Weev likely doesn't actually have much of anything to do with it at all... she just repeatedly mentioned his name and attributed all her problems to him in order to try and garner a bunch of attention.
I mean... Wired wouldn't have even ~bothered~ reposting it if NOT for the fact that she basically outright accused Weev of this, that and the other.
Weev is a pretty laid back guy... I mean, he's basically a bit of a stoner. He's not aggressive even in the slightest and when faced with aggressive personality types he tends to back off, block and ignore rather than confront head on in any way.
He ~does~ surround himself with a number of mallet heads who might pro-actively do shit on his behalf (with the false hope of impressing him in some way)... but certainly not with any form of active encouragement at all.
kmansfield Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou are ignoring the dox letter: "To be honest, Weev likely doesn't actually have much of anything to do with it at all...
This is a perfect example of gaslighting:
she just repeatedly mentioned his name and attributed all her problems to him in order to try and garner a bunch of attention.After all, she is just crazy, and he's just responding to her provocations, right?
Weev is a pretty laid back guy... I mean, he's basically a bit of a stoner. He's not aggressive even in the slightest and when faced with aggressive personality types he tends to back off, block and ignore rather than confront head on in any way.
Maybe you don't know the your idol very well.
"A year later...Mattathias Schwartz. He’d been working on a long-form feature magazine story about trolls for the NY Times, and it was about to come out. ... "
Here it is:" I first met Weev in an online chat room that I visited while staying at Fortuny’s house. “I hack, I ruin, I make piles of money,” he boasted. “I make people afraid for their lives.” On the phone that night, Weev displayed a misanthropy far harsher than Fortuny’s. “Trolling is basically Internet eugenics,” he said, his voice pitching up like a jet engine on the runway. “I want everyone off the Internet. Bloggers are filth. They need to be destroyed. Blogging gives the illusion of participation to a bunch of retards. . . . We need to put these people in the oven!”
I listened for a few more minutes as Weev held forth on the Federal Reserve and about Jews. Unlike Fortuny, he made no attempt to reconcile his trolling with conventional social norms. ...
Over a candlelit dinner of tuna sashimi, Weev asked if I would attribute his comments to Memphis Two, the handle he used to troll Kathy Sierra, a blogger. Inspired by her touchy response to online commenters, Weev said he “dropped docs” on Sierra, posting a fabricated narrative of her career alongside her real Social Security number and address. This was part of a larger trolling campaign against Sierra, one that culminated in death threats. Weev says he has access to hundreds of thousands of Social Security numbers. About a month later, he sent me mine.
Tribble24 • 6 years ago see moreI can't admit to being able to totally follow this article that showed up on the Google front News page, but I am left with a deep sadness over how many people live their lives online. The bloggers as well as the trolls...how profoundly tragic that so much time and energy is expended on pure NONSENSE when so many pressing issues face us as a society.
"for the lulz"? Is that some signature of no-life bullies who fancy themselves the purveyors of a Kafkaesque perspective? Or just your usual middle school mentalitied nobodies?Matthew Moulton Tribble24 • 6 years ago see more...you've got it all backwards though.
That "for the lulz" bit, that's all about *NOT* taking the Internet seriously.
Basically there are two kinds of people online... there are those who are "normal" who have active, healthy social lives and, as such, have no need to ret@rd back into the online world looking for a "substitute".
Those that do have such a need basically try and treat the Internet like a pseudo form of real reality. They basically take EVERYTHING online seriously and, as such, make extremely appealing targets for those that don't take the Internet seriously... at all.
For those who are "normal" the Internet is nothing more than a plaything, a form of interactive ENTERTAINMENT. They poke at the losers who try and use the Internet as a substitute for real life because it's downright hilarious.
I mean it's essentially the equivalent of a grown woman who treats a storybook like it's real life because she never learned how to interact socially like "normal" people.
Obviously if you met someone like that in the real world and presuming you were "normal" you would think it pretty amusing and would likely ask a few pointy questions here and there to listen to them try and "explain" their craziness.
It's the same online for supposed "trolls", they merely poke at the social misfits "for the lulz" because it's funny! :D
Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see moreIf anyone wants to hear Weev's rebuttal to all this...
Sterling Ericsson Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see more"Yesterday Kathy Sierra (a.k.a. seriouspony), a mentally ill woman"
I don't think I can read farther than this. Weev is the biggest asshole and I wish someone would punch him in the face and videotape it. I need the catharsis.
Ron Maimon Private_Eyescream • 6 years ago • edited see moreOk, but this is not good trolling. You aren't weev, you know.
GP Sterling Ericsson • 6 years ago • edited see moreI also love the part where Kathy is kind enough not to mention that this dude is a neo-nazi (a belief systems which means to me that have nothing of value to offer humanity) but for him shaming people by manufacturing a mental illness based on their dissent and then pretending that is something that should devalue anything they have to say is a double whammy is douchebaggery.
jmaynardg Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago • edited see moreTalk about umbrage. Let's look at his rationale for abuse:
Weev: "We must differentiate between "women in tech" and women making tech."
IOW: I determine who is important enough to deserve a public forum, not the author or publisher.
Weev: "The role of "women in tech" in our ecosystem is that they are women, and that they are in an ancillary position to people making technology. Also, they are always victims."
IOW: Baseless generalization as self-justification for my behavior.
Weev: "Of the three best hardware hackers I know (really hard to call the absolute best in matters like these) two are women."
IOW: Some of my best friends are black!
Weev: "Yesterday Kathy Sierra (a.k.a. seriouspony), a mentally ill woman, continued to accuse me on her blog of leading some sort of harassment campaign against her by dropping her dox (information related to identify and location) on the Internet."
IOW: Personally attack author, parry with presupposition of innocence, follow by downplaying charge.
Weev: "Doxing is common on the Internet."
And here are several examples. Therefore:
Weev: "Dropping dox is not just acceptable, but encouraged, as long as the person targeted is a white man with opinions they dislike."
Which no one said anywhere...
Weev: "Now, I believe in equal rights for women."
Which is why I harass them. To "equalize" men and women in 'Net society. To punish those who speak yet haven't met my ever changing and shifting Tech 3l1t3 hax0r standards. Because someone somewhere doxxed a man, therefore doxxing a random woman I dislike is fair play.
Who's the crazy one here?
Let this guy rot in jail.
Ron Maimon jmaynardg • 6 years ago see moreHe's right about the distinction. "Women who do tech" are techies. "Women in tech" are fake techies who play a leechy Bill Gates or Steve Jobs role, stealing credit from others and profiting from their hard work.
There are plenty of real female tech geniuses, for a great great example, there's Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat (although she's very old now). They aren't the same as the social schmoozers.
jmaynardg Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreMaimon wrote:
"He's right about the distinction. 'Women who do tech' are techies. "Women in tech" are fake techies who play a leechy Bill Gates or Steve Jobs role, stealing credit from others and profiting from their hard work."
Which justifies lying about a past history of prostitution, releasing the woman's social security number and home address to incite violence by crazies, and organizing a harassment campaign filled with death threats and threats of sexual violence.
"There are plenty of real female tech geniuses[...]"
Who are you to decide? She taught Java at Sun Microsystems. She wrote. And had a viable career. Professionals in the field relied on her because she was a known and trusted expert.
Who the hell are you or weev or anyone else to decide that someone else isn't "elite" enough to justify a soapbox? To go on a hate rampage that results in criminal harassment? Because she's note 3l1t3 enough.
Pathetic. It deserves criminal prosecution.
Ron Maimon jmaynardg • 6 years ago see moreIt's not about elite, dude. It's about the hard work required to produce new technical stuff. It's not the same kind of work as the social schmoozing and ass-kissing you use to rise up corporate ranks, and in fact, the two are mutually exclusive.
It is not clear that the harassment was done by weev, nor was there a "campaign", there was one doxing and a Craigslist prank of some kind, neither of which produced a credible threat to her safety or her families safety (although it was unethical and deplorable, because it induced paranoid fear).
It's not about me or weev, it's anyone who works hard to do actual original technical work, including Yvonne Choquet Bruhat, Karen Vogtman, Ingrid Daubechies, and many others. This is completely different kind of work than becoming a "known and trusted expert" or becoming a wealthy successful businessperson. It's producing work so radical and important that you are LAUGHED AT and THROWN OUT of companies, like Daubechies was for her revolutionary work on wavelets. Daubechies wasn't appreciated for more than a DECADE, you understand. This is the kind of harassment that trolls fight against, they fight against the power-structure of the bourgoisie, the orders that always oppress and suppress new mathematics and new science, and new computer science.
Weev doesn't understand that it's not the government or a conspiracy, it's a structural problem of class and money. But that's ok. He at least sees the problem, which is better than you.
jmaynardg Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreMaimon: "It's not about elite, dude. It's about the hard work required to produce new technical stuff."
Like you would know anything about what it takes to succeed as a professional in tech. The woman was a programmer, teaching at Sun Microsystems - for a time, a company that epitomized corporate nerd. For you these are nothing but words. But I remember what Sun was. And I know what it means for her to have been invited to teach there. You, Weev and your crowd aren't even a pathetic little candle compared to her star. You want to talk about people who *did* stuff? Sierra: she did.
> it's anyone who works hard to do actual original technical work, including Yvonne Choquet Bruhat, Karen Vogtman, Ingrid Daubechies, and many others.
It's interesting that you're parroting the exact same names Weev uses in his Livejournal post attacking Sierra. Talking Points much?
I won't comment on Bruhat, Voftman, or Daubechies. Their work speaks for itself and is entirely unrelated to this debate.
Ron Maimon jmaynardg • 6 years ago see moreIt takes nothing to succeed as a professional in tech, except being in the right social class or getting in that class through assiduous copying of rich people, then reading many other poor people who had original ideas, then parrotting these people while claiming the ideas as your own. You then will get praised for innovation. This is the tried and true method in the US. And then people wonder why so few Americans want to be engineers or scientists. Would you purposefully work hard so as to have your idea ripped off by a bourgeoise idiot?
Doing original work is damn hard, harder than you think by a factor of 100, and it requires many years of total commitment with absolutely zero payoff. To produce a good mathematical work, or a good engineering breakthrough, is comparable to climbing Mt. Everest alone. Further, you will, if you have a really important idea, certainly get ripped off by the worthless social schmoozers mentioned above, it is nearly inevitable. They will be of the right social class, you will not. They will have time to persuade others, you won't. Because you are expending 100 times more effort than they are on internal development, and you just don't have time to learn to win friends and influence people.
I know enough about what was going on at SUN, as these corporations produced the Sun UNIX, and other corporate UNIX. After it was a corporate behemoth, it produced the same garbage as all the other corporate behemoths. All that corporate crap is dead now, because we have Linux, which was produced by two independent free-thinkers who lived on the margins. Richard Stallman who slept in his office (until he got his MacArthur) and Torvalds, who was a student, both working hard in isolation for a long time.
Sierra did nothing original of any importance. She worked at the corporate heirarchy, and developed some of that Java mess, and wrote "design patterns" of some kind or another, which is not something I appreciate as important. It looks like negative progress to me, it's bourgeoise nonsense.
I am parrotting weev because I AGREE with him. He is right about this, and no neo-nazi or nazi-sympathizer could possibly ever see this, because it's ultimately a pure Marxist insight. This is why I don't buy his nazi bullshit, no matter what he says about it. It looks like a total put-on.
The work of Daubechies, Bruhat and Vogtman is not irrelevant, as it required actual hard creative work in isolation. I met one of them (Vogtman) and she was amazing. The creative work is not the only work that is needed, other work is important too, but it is the work that is not cookie cutter, this is the stuff that absolutely requires an individual to stretch outside the mainstream, and leave the culture entirely behind. This is what weev is trying to do, although I hope he finds less abrasive ways to do it (weev, dude, please, please, knock it off with the Jew business--- it really gets under my skin for obvious reasons).
jmaynardg Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreMaimon write: "It takes nothing to succeed as a professional in tech, except being in the right social class or getting in that class through assiduous copying of rich people, then reading many other poor people who had original ideas, then parrotting these people while claiming the ideas as your own."
Well there you go. Up is down. Left is right. Black is white.
You live in the 'Mirror Mirror' alternate universe. Say hi to Goatee Spock for me, would ya?
Raven jmaynardg • 6 years ago see moreWell, to be fair, Maimon could cite one major example. Bill Gates's career started by harvesting other people's programs, free for the taking, at MIT computer labs, and selling them. And then there was the whole (Q/MS/PC)-DOS vs. CP/M kerfuffle. (Bob Zeidman in the IEEE Spectrum claims to have debunked the topic, but the online article has been updated to disclose -- as the original did not -- that Zeidman is retained by Microsoft....)
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreIt's not one major example, it's the universal pattern. It's what happens in the real world all the time.
jmaynardg Raven • 6 years ago see moreGates went to Harvard, not MIT. His firm purchased Q-Dos, updated the program, and resold it to IBM legally. Hell, at the time it wasn't even clear if copyright applied to software. See the Computer Software Copyright Act of 1980. All that history happened beforehand.
Ron Maimon jmaynardg • 6 years ago see moreWhat I said is exactly how you get on top in a corporate heirarchy. You need to become a high class twit, and also find a low class techie to mooch ideas off of. This is why the corporate successes are most often partnerships of businessman/idea person with clear separation of roles.
blasphomet • 6 years ago see moreWhy do common register sites where trolls are known to occasion continue to allow Anonymity.. if i get a troll on face book, i look at their homepage.. and tell them just where they live.. it gets the message across that their living in a glass house.
Matthew Moulton blasphomet • 6 years ago see moreUh... have you ever even ~used~ FaceBook before? Because you don't actually need to provide any real world information... like... at all. And, even if you do, you can just make it private. ಠ_ಠ
Matthew Moulton Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago • edited see moreAlso, if you post someone's address in a threatening manner on FB... that's a good way of getting your account locked/dumped.
blasphomet Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago see morepeople are not as discrete as you might think, and its not about posting their whereabouts, but that you can identify their whereabouts.. towns schools social circles.. information is a thumbprint of your life.. or have we not figured that out yet. also being private does not mean you are not discover-able. social circles and people spill information on each other at every comment
Guest • 6 years ago see moreInternet trolls are for the most part wusses who got beat regularly in grade school and rejected by the popular girls in college. They talk a lot of crap online but if you ever met one face to face, they would run away like Sir Robin. It is what it is.
Matthew Moulton Guest • 6 years ago see moreActually most "high level" Internet trolls self-dox and tend to target people like YOU who HIDE behind fake names... I'm just sayin.
facefault Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago • edited see moreWhat are you, the Troll Internet Defense Force? You're getting your indignance all over everyone in this thread who doesn't hero-worship dickbags.
If "high level" Tier One Operator Super Secret Sparkle Pony Elite Trolls are even a thing, I'm pretty sure they're just as douchey to internet tough guys who adore them as they are to anyone else.
voiceOfUnreason Matthew Moulton • 6 years ago • edited see moreMatthew, with all due respect, pseudonyms are nothing particular to the Internet. They have been in use in print for eons. With many valid reasons. No need to personally attack the guy. He said nothing that is not valid. Keep it on point, and that is squarely on the moral compass, or lackthereof, perhaps parental upbringing of said trolls. Your response here in it's irony is very becoming of the troll-like behavior you, I and many here denounce.
Mark McAnulty • 6 years ago • edited see moreThanks for letting know us the whole story. weev has got a successful future in politics.
tommaile • 6 years ago see more"Troll" is just another empty vessel like "liberal," "terrorist," or "hipster."
It means whatever the user decides it means in that moment, and is therefore useless as a topic of discussion. Troll usually means "person I disagree with." And then the user heaps all kinds of random pejoratives and malevolent characteristics onto the head of the person they are trying to shame or bully.
Since troll means "person I disagree with" it is an absolute certainty that they will always exist, as they always have long, long, long before the Internet, or indeed human civilization, existed.
voiceOfUnreason tommaile • 6 years ago • edited see moreSince troll means "person I disagree with"...
Alas... the age of the filter bubble!
That is, within reason of course, providing what said “troll” is putting forth is actual fact. If otherwise, then said troll most likely deserves the label. But I highly agree with the sentiment of your statement above, in your most recent comment.
Labels are, to borrow your word, cheap and dirty, to be distrusted in their entirety. Sadly when media keeps pushing out these slogans, a vast majority of uncritical public are quick to lap it up so to speak.
You've got to think, who is pushing out this slogan, what is their motive? What is their interest? As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
But I naturally distrust Big Media so I don't want to project too much. On the face of all the evidence, quite a lot, been doing some research into this myself, Weev probably has some screws loose. That sentence he received for what it claimed does seem excessive, probably part backlash, “send a strong message”, etc. but if death threats and constant personal abuse, rape claims, attack of this woman here has any ounce of truth, then the guy rightly deserves to be condemned.
It's just not cool behavior. And considering he has probably got numbers of females in his family, mother, grandmother, cousins, sisters? etc. then it's borderline psychotic, even psycopathic that one is able to easily make a disconnect like that. This is the truth of the matter.
tommaile voiceOfUnreason • 6 years ago see moreAnother term the corporations and governments love to use is "pirate."
voiceOfUnreason tommaile • 6 years ago • edited see moreUgh... the government IS the pirate ;-). As I stated earlier, personally I veer very far away from slogans as it has lent itself to abuse over time. It's just a cheap, dirty tactic. But I don't want to “project” my distrust for government, Big Media and so I will leave it at that. Could bang on about it for a long time. Another personal distate of mine is the tendency to move to discredit people labelling them conspiracy theorists and what not. That is a particular favorite of mine.
tommaile voiceOfUnreason • 6 years ago see moreYes. Conspiracy Theorist also belongs on the list.
tommaile • 6 years ago • edited see moreAlso, it's entirely intentional that governments and corporations aggressively conflate "troll" (or "cyberbully") with bully, stalker, or pedophile.
It is in their interest to try to associate voices of dissent or disagreement with the most vile actions of criminals. Same way that terms like "terrorist" are conflated with legitimate voices of dissent.
A Sony Playstation fan, for example, who "trolls" a Nintendo message board or a Chargers fan who "trolls" a Seahawks message board is absolutely nothing like a stalker or predator.
Using the term "troll" just indicates the author is lazy, and intellectually shallow.
George Soros • 6 years ago see moreTroll or devil's advocate? I'd guess the majority of the time, people use the troll connotation when any disagrees with them. Kind of like the race card, don't have much to fall back on so out comes the troll card, whereby they no longer have feel obligated to provide supporting information or at the very least, understand someone else's side of the argument.
Majority of trolls aren't cyber bullies, just happens that the majority of cyber bullies are trolls. 90% of 10% doesn't equal a majority...
Freedom of speech is important, like an opinion or not that's irrelevant. What's important is allowing people to have their own opinion.
Barclay Dunn George Soros • 6 years ago see moreI'd also like to point out that when person A threatens various punishments to person B for something they said, that's person A interfering with person B's freedom of speech.
George Soros Barclay Dunn • 6 years ago see moreTake it you've never made an idle threat in your life. Don't disagree that person as is placing up an obstacle, but I find more fault in person be for listening to person A. No one can make you do, say or think a certain way without your consent. That said, none of what I say reflects my feeling on actual physical violence or threat thereof. Making a threat online, low risk of physical violence.
kmansfield George Soros • 6 years ago • edited see morehmm. I guess you must have some proclivity to making threats online. Generalizations are one thing, but you can't judge the particular risk to, or from a person who receives or makes online threats.
Eliot Rogers' threats on YouTube are one example. He was a black swan.
George Soros kmansfield • 6 years ago see moreNoble attempt, but complete fail. Are you still hiding in your house from 747's?
Barclay Dunn George Soros • 6 years ago see morei take it you've never been doxxed. i have, and it was a pretty scary experience.
George Soros • 6 years ago see moreTOR, Ubutnu bootiabe USB drive with TOR... Leech wifi, or Internet Cafe to make such comments, IP masking... It's not hard, just take a little understanding and time.
Josh Edo Kimura • 6 years ago see moreStrange, the whole way through the article I was surprised at how coherent and restrained it was. Not sure you're being objective, sir.
kmansfield Edo Kimura • 6 years ago • edited see moreWhile you say don't endorse "weev's ad hominem attacks on Kathy" you use ad homs yourself. You don't consider the points of fact she did make.
Telling lies is not criticism. Posting a social security number online, or names of family members, or an address - is an invitation to use personal information for identity theft and/or incitement to violence. It's not about hurt feelings.
pro tip: when criticizing someone's writing, make sure that your own use of the language is gooder than hers.
Malapropism and mixed metaphors: "She on the other hand is spewing incoherent emotional triggers." and "surgically trumped you"I found her writing - which she did for her own catharsis-- clear, creative, and well reasoned, not emotionally overwrought. Your claim is misogynistic, and dismissive. It's funny to me that weev's nazi tatoo is more proof of his guilt -- in this case, to you, than her account is telling.
voiceOfUnreason kevdog • 6 years ago • edited see moreWell placed for maximum reaction no doubt, but just, man, what a mugg, shot that is! It would be a shame if people let that get in the way of good, solid discussion. The media is good. :)
Pietro Saccardi • 6 years ago see moreI'm glad that this was brought up on Wired, and that's an article for which there's no such thing as TL;DR. Ted down there is right, this should be in the printed magazine.
Being an internet public figure, and dealing with masses of internet users is not something easy, and I really, really wish that it had never touched your life off the keyboard.For what is worth, the article moved me deeply, and I'll try to keep it in mind whenever it comes to speak or act, be it just stating an opinion or retweeting something.
Mahmet Tokarev (Tajik Pride) • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt's weird to me that more people don't get that trolling is an art form. A troll is an artist, and his canvas is emotion. I guess some people just don't appreciate art. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Michael Lindsay • 6 years ago see moreArticle links to "America Must End It's Paranoid War on Hackers" which discusses how harsh Weev's treatment in prison was.
After reading Kathy Sierra's account I have exactly zero sympathy for the guy!
Ron Maimon Michael Lindsay • 6 years ago • edited see moreYes, and sympathy is completely irrelevant. His maltreatment is shocking.
Ron Maimon zieroh • 6 years ago see moreShe is campaigning to silence and persecute others, and this is not acceptable. Neither is doxxing, but unlike doxxing, this stuff is dangerous to the freedom of everyone in the world.
Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreThere is an important purpose to "online trolling", when it is directed at ideas and does not threaten individual persons, as it serves as an effective immune system against incorrect or immoral ideas that propagate online. Without it, state agents, or deep pockets, can easily create a situation where criticism of blindly accepted material is heckled and silenced, even when the material is clearly nonsense and the criticism is cogent. Offensive language and over-the-top attacking is the way to overcome this barrier of authority.
The over the top behavior crossed the line to personal harassment in the cases you cite, harassing you, and epileptics, etc. But in fighting such harassment, one must preserve freedom of speech, most especially speech which is not nice. While it is not ethically right to threaten people, it is a criminal offense, the rude behavior is not of the same character, as rude behavior is the most effective tool of the powerless to effect change. Harassment and stalking are crazy, and have no relation to this behavior. One must clearly and forcefully insist that you separate the two modes of behavior, as they are distinct, and online verbal battery is not at all intended as a personal threat or personal harrassment, but as a method of winnowing out ideas with powerful propaganda.
The reason is that the internet only works to produce truth when it is free to be as hostile as possible, only bounded by the limits of sanity. This has been clear since the early days of usenet. While there are a few people who use this freedom to prop up existing power structures, by dismissing the concerns of women or ethnic minorities, there is no exclusion of this tool to such folks, and their attacks are ineffectual, because ultimately they cannot go that far. The freedom of speech is most precious when it is used against those power structures, as it is the most effective form of anti-power anti-propaganda.
For an example of a constructive troll, take a minute to read the feminist classic "The SCUM Manifesto", which was written well before there was an internet (although in the early 1960s, the independent free press, consisting of self-published pamphlets and magazines served a similar purpose). This document can be read as a prototype for modern-day internet bashing, the rude, foulmouthed, offensive, hate-filled diatribes that threaten one's sanity, but which serve to recast the world in an alien point of view. You need to protect the aliens, because sometimes the aliens get things right.
Such propaganda techniques are important because they quickly and powerfully overwhelm the comparatively feeble propaganda techniques you find in old media, television, film, or traditional publishing (with the sole exception perhaps the exceedingly vicious and foul-mouthed race-baiting Nazi tracts). In old media, such crass language and over the top insults cannot get through the most rudimentary censors that block the way. The internet allows such language, and unfortunately such language is absolutely required in order to smash through bad or fraudulent science, to purge discussions of bigotry and xenophobia (using the same language the trolls you don't like use), and to promote harmony and peace (despite the offense inherent to the language).
This language can also be used unproductively, of course. But thankfully, the people telling the truth always have the advantage in a rude discussion. A quick correction such as what you wrote above, renders it harmless, and even counterproductive. In many cases where censored mass-media has been lying to the public, such language is needed now more than ever. So I would suggest to you to grin and bear it, and to learn to do it effectively yourself, because, while psychologically difficult, perhaps especially so for women, it is important. It is an essential online sacrament.
voiceOfUnreason Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreAn excellent summation, Sir, if you don't mind me saying. Many, many points here to consider. Fantastic post. Written with such nuance, clarity and thought. I have to applaud this.
Priya Chand • 6 years ago see moreIt's amazing how many people will apologize for trolls when they wouldn't allow that kind of thing to happen in a non-Internet context at all. There's something about the Internet that makes people disconnect it entirely from reality, in terms of effects. It's ridiculous. I mean, even I'm not a fan of hearing harassment connected directly to sexism--sometimes, it is just harassment--but let's be real, it doesn't happen to women the same way it happens to men, and that is the definition of sexism.
And kudos to you for not just dropping it, forever.
Ron Maimon Priya Chand • 6 years ago see moreThat something is what makes the internet precious, and what allows it to uncover truths that are not uncoverable in any other context. Trolling behavior is required for this process to work, and no-one shall expel us from the paradise that Alexander Abian has created.
Priya Chand Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreGiven your comment below dismissing any threat from doxxing, your statement about "uncovering truths" sounds like the kind of thing you have to tell yourself so you can get to sleep at night.
Like sure, go ahead, send SWAT teams to the house of a person who, having no idea what's going on, may respond in a way that gets them shot. Or destroy someone's livelihood for the "lulz." Just because you don't see it happening—and just because you didn't pull the trigger or fire them yourself—doesn't make it any less real.
Ron Maimon Priya Chand • 6 years ago see moreI didn't condone any real world nonsense, but these threats are simply made up as propaganda so as to explain and justify censorship, they are not real threats.
jmaynardg • 6 years ago see moreKathy,
Wonderful article. Thank you for writing it.
I've been 'Net around for some time. I remember watching Trolls on USENET in the late 1980s through the1990s. And their transition to the Web on Slashdot, Kuro5hin and 4chan. And there's one central point I think you missed.
Yes, there is a short-term gain to be had by attacking you. If they ruin you or drive you away, they get lulz for a day. But there is a long-term goal at work rarely discussed. That goal is true regardless if the target is chosen gender, sexual orientation, race, politics, etc.
By destroying you - your input - they diminish the forum. The attack can be on an individual web forum, but in your case it was directed to a public soapbox - that of women speaking out on matters in Tech. The forum could exist anywhere. A traditional publication like Wired, Twitter aggregation, a blog - whatever. The point is that the long-term goal is to destroy the communications channel itself. They use the channel to destroy it. Sometimes leaving a once popular place as nothing more than 'Net tumbleweeds and Word Wide Cobwebs. Other times, destroying the very idea of open discussion on a topic itself - across all web venues.
That is the goal. To limit public discourse to what they consider acceptable topics. And the list of acceptable is ever shrinking. Each success - by necessity - encourages new targets. It's a cancer on the body-public.
Ron Maimon jmaynardg • 6 years ago see moreIt is the exact opposite--- good trolls brought more people than they drove away. The ones driven away were simply the ones who couldn't respond to the harshly worded attacks, because they were IGNORANT. This has the effect of inverting traditional power-structures, and it made truth win out in cases which had been problematic in the published literature for decades.
GP Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon, you're an idiot. Stick to your 9/11 truther theories, physics and stay away from other humans. I hope your daughter sees your online presence and is ashamed that her father was so shamelessly disinterested in one woman's pain for the sake of stroking his own ego.
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago • edited see moreMy daughter will be proud of me, GP. I doubt that will be true of your children. This lady has no pain, she is purposefully seeking to inflict pain on another, driven by pure malice.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreSorry, you're right. I shouldn't have said malice. Driven by memories of actual fear, but no credible threat. She has no pain anymore, this was a long time ago, and she knows now how impotent internet threats are.
Actually, now that I realize that you are the same person as her, it's worse than malice, it's dishonesty with the self-centered agenda of propping herself up at the expense of her betters.
GP jmaynardg • 6 years ago see moreI'm sure that there is some element of this theory that's correct, but I would highly recommend doing more research on the position of women and minorities and reassess those thoughts.
jmaynardg GP • 6 years ago see moreI'd encourage you to be specific. Rebut the position if you wish. But telling me to "do more research" doesn't offer rebuttal. It's much too ambiguous a statement to make any kind of argument at all.
GP jmaynardg • 6 years ago see moreAt the root of this kind of behaviour is bigotry, not some kind of meta attempt at dismantling public forums. I honestly believe that is secondary and if you had more knowledge about the experiences of minorities and at-risk people in public/cyber spaces then you wouldn't be so blandly mansplainy and pseudo-academic in your assessment. Very telling that you thought you needed to tell Sierra what her analysis is and what she missed.
jmaynardg GP • 6 years ago • edited see moreGP Wrote: "At the root of this kind of behaviour is bigotry, not some kind of meta attempt at dismantling public forums."
Oh, I disagree. In fact, as Sierra notes:
"I now believe the most dangerous time for a woman with online visibility is the point at which others are seen to be listening, “following”, “liking”, “favoriting”, retweeting. In other words, the point at which her readers have (in the troll’s mind) “drunk the Koolaid”. Apparently, that just can’t be allowed."
To prevent this is to limit expression on a public forum. Now, step back - beyond just Sierra - and consider how this works in aggregate. After a hypothetical point where Sierra, Sarkeesian, Quinn, and any number of other women have been silenced.
The public forum of women's expression is destroyed. Because no one else is willing to talk for fear of harassment.
Expand beyond the issue of women's speech rights to any number of other issues that attract concerned citizens and audiences. See the trolls work to destroy those forums. And soon enough, all that's left is what little discussion they approve.
Thus, the troll winds up through violence and intimidation at the inflection point of gatekeeping public discussion itself.
You argue this isn't an 'intentional' goal. That each event is individual and disorganized. But regardless, what I describe is the effective outcome.
GP Wrote: "Very telling that you thought you needed to tell Sierra what her analysis is and what she missed."
Looking to drive an implied wedge between my support of Sierra and her plight at the hands of vicious trolls as if with my little comment I had intended patriarchal insult to her? I meant no disrespect to in any way. And I think that's apparent.
GP jmaynardg • 6 years ago see moreYa, your entire point is that these people want to salt the earth and render the ground infertile. My point is that the only reason they're shooting for that is the gender, race and ability of the person they're aiming for.
And I'm not driving a wedge, I'm pointing out your blatant mansplaining. Please take it as constructive and grow from it. Don't enter a space and tell a woman what is wrong with an analysis gained from her personal experience because it makes you look like a self-centered misogynist.
jmaynardg GP • 6 years ago see moreGP Wrote: "And I'm not driving a wedge, I'm pointing out your blatant mansplaining. Please take it as constructive and grow from it. Don't enter a space and tell a woman what is wrong with an analysis gained from her personal experience because it makes you look like a self-centered misogynist."
A fascinating perspective. Troll a bit much lately?
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago • edited see moreThis is incorrect. The target is not chosen for gender or race. The target is chosen for class. High class people are the target, regardless of race or gender. This is the real variable here.
Insults and ridicule are two things that high class people can't abide, so there are calls that "something must be done". Nothing must be done. It's exactly how it should be.
There are rare cases of outright racist or sexist comments online, which are quickly met with a wall of hostile outrage by anti-racist trolls. People just don't do it very often on uncensored fora. They do it only when they can control the content to exclude anti-racist comments, which make racist comments go like molasses. The racists and sexist never got the upper hand on uncensored fora, they got hammered on it right from the beginning, in usenet times. It was one of the things that made it clear the internet was very useful as a mechanism of social justice.
And don't tell ANYONE not to criticize someone because of her gender. The criticism is for her CLASS not her gender, this is the only thing that really matters.
Neighbor Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more"There are rare cases of outright racist or sexist comments online, which
are quickly met with a wall of hostile outrage by anti-racist trolls."rare cases??? rare cases?????????????????? you are too much dude
Ron Maimon Neighbor • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt's true, these things are rare. You only think they are common because you remember them when you see them. The place where they are rarest is on serious discussion forums dedicated to such things, with open access, for example, Wikipedia talk pages in the days when they were uncensored.
Raven jmaynardg • 6 years ago see moreAt the intersection point of both your observations is the concept that Weev might be not only a white supremacist but also a male supremacist, unable to accept the presence of strong intelligent women on Internet fora, and therefore determined to drive them out as permanently as possible. He did not attack other (male) prominent members of the forum, did he?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreHe has nothing against technical females. He dislikes politically powerful people, because these people are always anti-tech. It doesn't matter if it's Steve Jobs or this lady, power and tech just don't mix. Either you're a big shot, or you build circuits. You're never both. That's why he likes Stallman. It's not about gender. It's about social class.
The aversion to bourgeoise class power is present in all techies, even if they don't know what it is. It's why so many were sympathetic to socialism, and why the USSR despite all it's weakness, was a tech powerhouse.
jmaynardg Raven • 6 years ago see moreRaven Wrote: He did not attack other (male) prominent members of the forum, did he?
Perhaps he did. Maybe not. Clearly, the man has a problem with racism and sexism. But he's not the only troll on the Internet. Just one of the worst.
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago • edited see moreWomen and minorities don't need your help GP. They can beat up the racists and sexist bigots online with their own trolls, and they certainly do, often. The real issue is with people who are powerful, as they want protection from getting beat up by the trolls, and they don't need protection.
Typhani • 6 years ago see moreFirst of all - that's a horrible story and I am sorry you had to be the main feature in it. I can't imagine and I hope your future is more civilized. But really I just have a question after reading it. You seem to be coming from a predominantly male social sphere and I get that sometimes women who follow these paths in life can be seen as some sort of threat to some of these men who think it should remain a boy's club. That in and itself is really aggravating but I just wanted to know if you think this would have happened if you had written under a male pen name? I ask because I have written things (educational and satire) and have always written under a male pseudonym. I get trolls too but most of them are like, "You're wrong, you're opinions are as atrocious as your grammar, hope you have fun rotting in Hell." I get a LOT of threats of Hell. I have never once been threatened with rape, or murder, or anything that would make me want to call the police. Do you think there is anything to be garnered from this? Can we learn something from this? Or does it really all come down to white men freaking out because they are feeling a shift in power? (i.e. voices given to women, children, and minorities.) Thank you for writing about your experiences either way. This conversation really needs to filter its way into the masses - only then will change ever really be possible.
GP Typhani • 6 years ago see moreThis seems like a genuine question, but it is one that could be answered with Google. It is a rule of thumb that women get more threats, worse threats which are then summarily dismissed as "the same amount as others" or the "you're just getting the threats/harassment that they think will be the most effective, it's nothing personal."
This goes double for women of colour, fyi.
GP Private_Eyescream • 6 years ago see moreSkimming over this comment it makes sense that you're thoughtlessly defending a neo-nazi. Why don't you keep your comments for rallies? Or whatever you garbage babies call your terror meet+greets.
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago • edited see moreUnlike the other guy, I have decided to thoughtlessly defend this neo-nazi.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "... he's getting smeared...."
He said himself, freely and of his own will, that he had done it.
Now you call it a smear. On her part?? And on everyone else's part, like Schwartz's?? And it can't possibly be the simple truth?
Whence this strange certainty that he wasn't telling the truth the first time, rather than sixteen months later?
Or if it was a lie, and her lie, how could she make him tell that lie to Schwartz, and then fail to retract it for over a year?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreI didn't say he didn't do it, I don't know if he did it or not, and I don't care. I said he is getting smeared, and this is true regardless of whether he did it or not.
He is being compared to rapists, those who threaten murder, etc, for internet activity which is miles removed from any of this. His reputation is being dragged through the mud, purposefully, by hearsay derived from the testimony of powerful idiots, and without any trial, simply through a lynch mob of malicious malcontents who don't know fuck all about him or his accuser.
That includes me, of course, I don't know fuck all about any of this. But I AM NOT MALIGNING HIM, OR HIS ACCUSER, you see. I just try to stop YOU from doing it, you vicious asshole.
Before accusing him of being a troll, look in the goddamn mirror.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "I didn't say he didn't do it, I don't know if he did it or not, and I don't care. I said he is getting smeared, and this is true regardless of whether he did it or not."
If he did it, then it is not a smear to say so.
"He is being compared to rapists, those who threaten murder, etc, for internet activity which is miles removed from any of this."
Miles removed? Falsely accusing a woman of being a prostitute who issues DMCA takedown notices is smearing her, drawing widespread hatred and contempt; combine that with giving out her home address, and it exposes her to physical danger from the men so motivated -- many of whom may consider a "prostitute" fair game. There's the clear incitement.
"But I AM NOT MALIGNING HIM, OR HIS ACCUSER, you see."
You say you're not maligning her? But you call her "a lady who is purposefully and maliciously...."
Whereas that phrase more accurately fits Weev.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreIt fits both of them, actually. The contrast is that weev is completely powerless, he can do nothing except internet blather, and she can do something to him real world.
Raven Private_Eyescream • 6 years ago • edited see morePE: "PEOPLE LIE TO MAKE THEMSELVES LOOK LIKE VICTIMS."
But of course, not including Andrew "weev" Auernheimer.
Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreI contradicted myself, and I have a corn on my foot. Both are equally relevant.
Bob Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI took the time to watch your pod cast and have a better understanding of your position. I also did not cite authority unless you are claiming to be an authority. Do I understand your message? It's okay to threaten a woman with rape because it is impossible to commit the act? It's okay to bring in her kids to the discussion? It's okay for her to be afraid?
This is what you are calling correct, because he is powerless. An unknown individual that could be anywhere and be anybody is not a threat.Ron Maimon Bob • 6 years ago • edited see moreThreatening violence online is not ok at all, but it is not really seriously threatening either, and it is stupid and counterproductive. It naturally dies on its own eventually, people stop doing it, because all it does is hurt your own cause. It doesn't do anything except make you look bad and get you ignored.
The reason it happens is because the internet is extremely violent to ideas, it can topple a long held dogma very quickly. The measures against offensive speech are used to protect powerful positions against dismissive ridiculing attack, and this is something that is necessary. Sometimes that means you need to speak out in defense of people who crossed that line to some real world harassment, because if you don't, that line will gradually move to the point where all criticism is squelched.
Online threats don't spill over to the real world except in extraordinarily unusual cases, and this is not one of those cases. It doesn't need special legal protection or any meddling by the state. This is just the response of people who hear a completely uncensored discussion for the first time, and become freaked out, and think 'oh no, you can't say THAT, can you?' Yes you can, and this freedom is what makes the internet different from your TV.
Bob Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWe agree on a lot of points, but one, do you take an unknown threat seriously. Knowing Weev does downgrade the threat, but at which point did we know it was him?
Ron Maimon Bob • 6 years ago see moreI don't know him, and I think the doxxing is not ok. I am downgrading the threat because it was an internet flame war, and this is simply not a plausible pretext for violence.
MichaelZWilliamson • 6 years ago see moreweev is a POS and I hope he has a large boyfriend in jail.
Ron Maimon MichaelZWilliamson • 6 years ago see moreWeev is a reasoned but somewhat angry and irresponsible young fellow, who is being smeared here by unfair associations with much more vicious folks, in particular those who stalk and menace women. You must remember that his _sole_ offense is (arguably) placing already publically available information about the lady in question on a public forum, where it could be more easily read by others. This doxxing is certainly not ethical, but it is not quite criminal either, and it happens frequently towards much more powerless others who do not have the wherewithall to write a long rambling article in WiReD to complain about it.
Here he is being compared with folks who purposefully induce seizures in epileptics, threaten to rape women, threaten to harm one's children, and threaten murder! It is not right to make this comparison, he certainly didn't do any of that. Doxxing isn't stalking, it's just a bad thing to do. It's not even the worst legal thing he could do.
In his blog posts, Weev has made it clear that he is not stalking the author of this article (why anyone would pay attention to her is not clear to me). I irrationally like him, simply because he defended internet pioneer, academic martyr, and free-software guru Richard Stallman from the permanent unfair attacks against him. He also made a cogent argument in support of a counterintuitive ethical proposition: he argues we should preserve the right to write and sell software exploits for profit. The ACLU, normally on the side of freedom, opposes this, because they are worried the exploits can be used for surveillance His argument is that, seemingly paradoxically, by allowing folks to sell exploits on an open market, the software exploits are found and fixed much more quickly, as the price is low enough for companies to buy the exploits themselves so as to fix them. In a regulated market, governments are the only customers who can afford to hire the dedicated staff to find the exploits, so the exploits are not fixed, and this actually reduces the cost of government surveillance, because there are more low-hanging fruit. His argument is cogent, and sincere, although I am not sure he is right in this case.
He seems to be a normal sane person. His reckless nonsense, doing borderline criminal things, is probably just youth. He is obviously a valuable contributor to online discussions, possibly more so than the person bringing up the overblown and defaming charges against him, ridiculously associating him with rapists and murderers and those that incite murder.
GP Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreYou're a garbage person and you need to use your brain before typing.
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago see moreThanks, I think you are a garbage person too! The fellow is being smeared by associating his unethical action with much worse actions (for example, "come rape me" is not something he did). I don't know the details of this case, I just quickly made up my mind by reading this article, and noticing it is propaganda. I didn't know anything about this case before, and I won't bother learning.
GP Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreYa, he also called Kathy Miller mentally ill in his response to this post. His diagnostic proof? This article. He's also a literal neo-nazi. If you knew these things and still decided to defend his honour, you are a human nightmare, and I weep for your mother.
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago • edited see moreI know all these things. I defend him doubly. Because this type of persecution is exactly what the Nazis did. "Why behold you the speck that is in your brother's eye, but consider not the beam that is in your own eye?" What you are doing here is worse than what you accuse him of doing.
He's safe in Lebanon now, learning arabic.
GP Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreBecause he has no other supporters...Good job, I'll let anyone who is universally despised (with good reason) that you've got their back. Solid reasoning there.
Also love the "when you get angry about the abuse you become worse than the abuser." Where do you come up with these gems?
Raven GP • 6 years ago see moreI guess if you become angry about child abuse, you become worse than a child abuser, too.
GP Raven • 6 years ago see moreGod, you're so wise, you know? Just old-timey, new testaminty spouting wise. Like our good friend Ron!
GP Raven • 6 years ago see moreHahaha, it's funny because Ron is the WORST and we are not Ron therefore everything will be okay for us.
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago • edited see moreHere's what's going on: you have a bunch of brainless twits posting attacks on a person they don't know because of something someone else they don't know said about him, inspired by a flame war.
It's absurd, and it would be comical, except your author here is trying to shut up the trolls, who are the lifeblood of the internet. Go stick it.
If you're not a troll, there is something seriously wrong with you.
GP Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreA) Had you been paying attention at all you would have noticed I've discussed being an adult woman several times throughout this comments section.
B) Yes, you're a badass and a veritable wit. I'm very impressed by how little you've said in so many words.
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt's important to defend those who are on the margins, as they are your first line of defense against tyrrany, and also, they make all the cool new stuff.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreOh yes, Nazis have always been your first line of defense against tyranny, like when they fought against the tyranny of trade unionists etc. in Germany, as Pastor Martin Niemöller so pithily observed:
"First, they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me."
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYes, except nowadays they come for the nazis first.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Yes, except nowadays they come for the nazis first."
I call BS on that. The ACLU firmly defends the Nazis' rights in court, viz. their march in Skokie IL. The police protect their parade routes and rallies, rather than rounding them up. Their freedoms of speech and association are punctiliously observed. That's been a touchstone: "EVEN the Nazis...." etc.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreI don't have a problem with coming for Nazis first. I just recognize it for what it is.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "You must remember that his _sole_ offense is (arguably) placing already publically available information about the lady in question on a public forum...."
Like her Social Security number? No, sorry, you lost me there. Publishing a woman's home address and other personal details, together with _false_ information calculated to inspire hatred against her, amounts to inciting others to physically attack her at home... and in fact other men have been criminally convicted for doing just such publication of women's home addresses (with "come rape me" and other such incitements).
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreI don't know the details, but I am certain he didn't say "come rape me". I agree that this stuff is unethical, but the article is a propaganda piece against internet speech, and I reserve judgement about claims of criminal behavior, as it is very easy to make someone look bad in a forum such as this.
No one should EVER dox anyone, it is an unethical thing, but I am not sure you are getting the full story.
GP Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreSpeaking of "unethical", what's your stance on hate speech even worth when you're openly supporting a neo-nazi?
GP Private_Eyescream • 6 years ago see moreHe's an actual neo-nazi. So...Dunno where you're going with that one. Unless being a neo-nazi intsant a negative for you. In which case I'm just going to back away slowly and not make eye contact. http://gawker.com/ipad-hack...
GP Private_Eyescream • 6 years ago see moreAre you copy-pasting from Stormfront now? Geez, get away from me you aspiring SS loser.
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago • edited see moreHim being a neo nazi is not enough to persecute the guy. Can't you see that you are engaged in a campaign of character assassination against a person you don't even know? I have no sympathy for neo nazis, but what I read of his does not read like a neo nazi, but a very good troll who is manipulating imagery in a very nice way.
GP Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreYes it is. If you're stupid and narcissistic enough to join a cult of hate, you lose the benefit of the doubt pretty much immediately.
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago • edited see moreI just read the article. Ok, I am Jewish, and relatives of mine were murdered and enslaved. He thinks I am, with my Jewish cohorts, engaged in a conspiracy to get him. I don't know why, but it doesn't make me upset. I know why now, it's because he's always attacking BASTARDS IN POWER, not powerless people as real nazis do.
I'm sorry, but ultimately, I know a smear campaign when I smell one, and this one reeks to high heaven. He doesn't deserve this, he did offensive things, but probably not criminal things. He should grow up, meet a nice Jewish girl and have some children.
GP Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreThat's super sweet of you, but as he has done literally nothing to hurt you or your loved ones (unlike Kathy who he threatened and doxed, though you continue to disagree despite being offered proof.) So please keep up with the rhetoric of "forgive the abuser" and "ignore the trolls." It's really sweet and earnest, not at all navel-gazing & churlish.
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago see moreIt's not sweet, it's necessary, you malicious carnivore. He likely didn't threaten Kathy at all, you weren't there, you know nothing. I know what flame-fests are like, they are personal, and abusive. When you are doxxed, you get all paranoid, because sudenly all the potential threats become real in your mind, because "Oh no! Oh no! They know my address".
Here's the thing she didn't realize: nobody cares about you! Nobody is going to follow you, nobody is going to threaten you, nobody is going to hurt you. It's a psychological ploy to scare you, that's all it was. It worked.
It was never anything more, and I know, because she never said it was anything more in this article. She tried to imply it like all heck, with weasel words and double speak, but she didn't say it.
I know enough to know why she didn't say it. She didn't say it because it wasn't true. Nobody did anything to her, and there was no credible threat.
GP Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreHahah, you're a moron. A fancy gentleman idiot. How many times have people posted sources for you in this thread? You're a special kind of dumb butt.
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago see moreButt? dumb? Heck no! It just said pfft to you. I don't need any sources for this propaganda nonsense. Pulling the stuff out of said butt gives me more accurate information than you propagandistic sources.
Raven GP • 6 years ago see moreYou missed the bit about Ron's wanting weev and Kathy to forgive each other.... (because, y'know, their situations are so symmetrical, what with each having wronged the other equally).
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreIt's not quite symmetrical, as they have unequal power. He made her psychologically uneasy, she campaigned to put him in jail.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreNo, you failed even to read what the above article said on that point: she scrupulously abstained from adding any statement of her own experiences with weev to his sentencing hearing -- which would have been her best opportunity to "campaign to put him in jail" (for longer, at any rate).
And quite arguably, he "campaigned" to at least put her at risk of getting killed. He had no assurance that *none* of his readers were the sort that Kuban found over 100 of, gullible and motivated enough to follow through on the suggestion given.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou keep thinking that, and you can keep deluding youself of that, but it just isn't true. Also, I think you're the same person as the author, so this is not an independent opinion, and making it look like one is real, actual, intellectual dishonesty.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: " I think you're the same person as the author...."
Because I was aware of the facts in the article -- because, unlike you, I ACTUALLY READ IT instead of yammering for over a week based on my blind assumptions.
You keep thinking that, and you can keep deluding yourself of that, but it just isn't true.
But it's funny, and it sticks your foot further down your throat every time you post it.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreOk, I removed it. Quick persuasive corrections are what you get when you are rude and wrong, and I got one. I am sure now that I am taking to a real separate person from Kathy Sierra. But I didn't know you were a dude, dude. I thought you were a dudette.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "I thought you were a dudette."
It was the chin-beard that gave you that impression, right?
Man, must'a been some *tough* Sabra chicks you grew up with!
GP Raven • 6 years ago see more*Unnnng* This dude has a huge internet footprint. He's got a daughter under 5 and apparently a couple of ivy league degrees (which if they are real make him TOTALLY educated about identity politics, gender politics, race politics, etc.) 4chan nerds don't grow up, they just get bigger and and more embarrassing.
Raven GP • 6 years ago • edited see more"... and apparently a couple of ivy league degrees (which if they are real make him TOTALLY educated about...."
But he also has the handicap of being a Marxist, for whose philosophy the definition of truth is not that a statement corresponds to the ways things actually are ("there's no objective truth"), but that it serves the cause -- thus a claim and its negation may both be "true" at different times, depending on which best serves the cause at the moment.
That's why he's utterly uninterested in learning the facts of the case, doesn't care; once he'd decided weev better served his chosen cause, weev had to stay free regardless of guilt, and Kathy Sierra had to be declared the "malicious" villain of the piece -- in the face of all contrary evidence. Absolutely typical of a Post-Modernist, fact-free process.
And a mind divorced from fact is not, in my view, going to end up well-educated at all.
( I suspect that may be why people at Quoracast "found his science unconvincing".)
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreI'm not a Marxist, I read Marx. There's a difference, which is intellectual autonomy. I am not a post-modernist, I don't approve of Heidegger, Nietzsche or any of their intellectual descendants, and I believe truth is truth.
I am uninterested in learning the facts because you aren't giving facts, just propaganda. I already guessed the facts upon skimming the article, I guessed right, there is nothing more to learn.
I also read Jefferson, and I would defend his position on free speech over Marx's, although not so much on gender politics and owning human beings.
My "Ivy League degrees" are as useful as toilet paper online. My accomplishments are in discovering new things about science that sound unpersuasive to idiots, but which are verified by instruments and calculations.
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt's obviously worth more than the stance of an insincere "free speech" hypocrit who refuses to support speech he does not like. Neo Nazi speech is not even close to the most offensive speech I have heard, there was speech on usenet that would make a typical neo-nazi's blood curdle with horror. I defend that speech too, although some of it gave me nightmares.
GP Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreYou can defend hate-speech till the cows come home. It's still immoral, illegal, and most importantly not protected. But ya, I'm sure the nasty words gave you real bad nightmares and you're very brave, etc.
MichaelZWilliamson Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreweev is a POS, a thief, a punk, and in jail. The end.
Ron Maimon MichaelZWilliamson • 6 years ago see moreMichaelZWilliamson is a POS, a thief, a punk, and should rot in jail. The end.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "In his blog posts, Weev has made it clear that he is not stalking the author of this article...."
He may have asserted that; he has assuredly not "made it clear", for what he has done falls squarely under "cyberstalking".
"... (why anyone would pay attention to her is not clear to me)."
You and he are certainly free not to pay attention to her. However, notice that Weev, despite asserting that she doesn't deserve attention, seems to have spent a great deal of effort and (hostile) attention on her, and on drawing others' (hostile) attention to her. Why would he do that?
"He seems to be a normal sane person."
Oh, heaven save us all from your idea of normal sane people.
"... the person bringing up the overblown and defaming charges against him...."
The Person would be the federal government, right? Usually called The Man, but I guess you're being gender-neutral. As for overblown and defaming -- if you're not talking about what he was convicted on (which can't be defaming), then you must be talking about what he said himself... in the words of Wikipedia (which cited its sources): "Auernheimer also claimed responsibility for posting a false account of Kathy Sierra's career in 2007[57] including claims that she was a former prostitute, along with her actual address and Social Security number.[9]"
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreHe is being targeted actively in a smear campaign. This is abominable, even if he is a neo-nazi hitler-lover. This is a public lynching, and I won't take part in it passively. I can only say "shame on you". Leave him alone, or emulate him.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "He is being targeted actively in a smear campaign."
He himself said that he had done it. How is that a smear?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreBecause you don't know what he did! You don't know anything. You are INFERRING what he did from a malicious propagandistic testimony designed to smear him.
He may have doxxed her, or he may have LYINGLY boasted about doxxing her. He has claimed hacks he didn't do in the past.
But it doesn't matter, this is not the smear I am talking about. The smear is making a propaganda painting to make his online potential doxxing activity look like it involved any credible threat whatsoever.
There was no threat here at all, beyond the fear it induced in her mind. This fear she is inducing in your mind, so suddenly you are just as angry at him as she was. There was no stalking, there were no real threats, it was all online nonsense like you have seen a million times, when user A threatens user B that he will rip his guts out of his belly and feed it to him. That's the kind of threat you are talking about.
Your anger and malice is just pure evil, and collective evil, a lynch mob evil. Unlike his non-threat to her, you pose an actual threat to him, as he is being targeted by the state for incarceration, and is susceptible to this political nonsense attacks.
Raven • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "It's science, other people's opinion are not important."
You weren't saying you were "uninterested in learning other people's opinion" above, you said you were "uninterested in learning the facts" -- as elsewhere you've said you "don't care" about the facts, you "guess" and "make assumptions" at the very start and then (as you put it here) "there is nothing more to learn."
Which isn't science at all, Ron, it's blind and stubborn ignorance.
Raven • 6 years ago see moreLiars lie because it so often works; the better they get at it, the more that lesson is reinforced. A whole lot of people have been reinforcing the lesson for Weev -- which doubtless encouraged him to deny everything and proclaim his own innocence despite his earlier confessions -- thereby reinforcing the lesson for all the other liars watching the show. And the world becomes a little worse.
So my humble and profound thanks to those who insisted on telling the truth to balance the scales, even just a bit. I consider that a world-bettering deed.
Kathy Sierra, I admire you tremendously. ... and you deserve it.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreIf he is lying, which I am not 100% sure about, he is lying so as to avoid the wave of persecution and prosecution directed against him, for example, right here. Remember that he might have been lying the first time, when he obliquely didn't deny the doxxing. People sometimes aren't so honest, and take credit for things they didn't do. People also sometimes lie about things they did do. I don't know, and I don't care.
The doxxing is a really unethical thing, it was extremely stupid, but whoever did it was just being an idiot. Who the heck would do anything to this harmless patzer who wrote the article? She is paranoid sure, so am I, isn't everybody? I also would hate to get doxxed. But there's little one can do about it.
The doxxer didn't get the information by hiring a PI or following her around, he found it on the internet. The association with rapists, murderers, and so on is not appropriate, as I didn't see a claim that there was any of that, except by innuendo. The association with malicious eplepsy inducing people is just a smear.
If it was him, as best as I can see (with a minute's reading), his motivation seems to have been retaliation for doxxing of others. Doxxing just shouldn't happen, and retaliating with more doxxing is absurd, and only makes you into a complicit supporter of the practice. But this guy sounds like he's twenty three, and doesn't know any better.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Remember that he might have been lying the first time, when he obliquely didn't deny the doxxing."
Obliquely Didn't Deny? Ah, no. He outright claimed.
The NYTimes's Mattathias Schwartz wrote, of their in-person interview: "Weev said he 'dropped docs' on Sierra, posting a fabricated narrative of her career alongside her real Social Security number and address. This was part of a larger trolling campaign against Sierra, one that culminated in death threats."
Whereas you firmly told Michael Hess: "She did not recieve a single death threat...."
But as you said above: "I didn't know anything about this case before, and I won't bother learning."
No-one can argue with Invincible Ignorance.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreI am ignorant, sure, but I don't believe you or her. The reason is that people say "I think you should be dropped out of an airplane for suggesting comment moderation, an I hope you land on a cactus" on an internet forum, and if you insist on doing propaganda with this, you could call that a "death threat", it sounds like one doesn't it? Except we all know it's not.
I won't know from talking to you, frankly, because I don't trust your reporting. This is a propaganda smear campaign against an individual, so I can't trust you, sorry. If you were more honest, in a verifiable way, and honestly explained the actual details of the death threat, I would be more likely to be persuaded, but honestly, there's very little you can say, as I decided from the main body of the article that this is a bunch of bullshit propagana directed at someone somebody powerful doesn't like.
Having found this, I am more convinced than ever: http://www.wired.com/2014/1...
In situations like this, you have to give this weev character the full benefit of the doubt. He's innocent until proven guilty. Actually, heck, in my book, he's just innocent no matter what you prove, even though that bastard denies the genocide of my relatives and thinks "my people" are out to get him.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRaven: "The NYTimes's Mattathias Schwartz wrote, of their in-person interview: 'Weev said he "dropped docs" on Sierra, posting a fabricated narrative of her career alongside her real Social Security number and address. This was part of a larger trolling campaign against Sierra, one that culminated in death threats.'"
Ron Maimon: "I am ignorant, sure, but I don't believe you or her."
Neither of whom were cited or quoted in the above, to be believed or disbelieved.
"Actually, heck, in my book, he's just innocent no matter what you prove...."
No use anyone throwing mere facts, quotes, or citations at you, then.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreYes, that's right, there is no use in throwing facts, quotes, or citations. I will ignore them.
I will simply insist that you should be ashamed of yourself. Stop persecuting this poor guy, he hasn't done anything worth this kind of attack.
FunkyMonk Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWhy are you spending more time defending "this poor guy" who admitted to doxxing someone to enable threats against them and than the actual victim?
I know, based on reading your posts, that you seem to think that trolls are actually good guys, and not bullies which is laughable in and of itself as most trolls are bullies, so I have to ask - where's the limit? You obviously think distributing someones personal information to enable harrassment is absolutely fine so what would be bullying and harrassment to you?
Ron Maimon FunkyMonk • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt isn't AT ALL fine to dox. It's unethical, it's a completely crappy thing to do. But I am not sure if this guy did it, or just boasted about it, and also I am sure it doesn't deserve criminal prosecution, rather civil liability is the proper recourse, so that she can sue him for damages, and I would suggest that perhaps she should win her lawsuit. It's an easier burden of proof anyway, she probably can manage it.
But that's not what this article is about. It's about censoring discussions because they might offend people, by linking offense to real-world danger. There is no real-world danger, this is just a figment of this lady's imagination.
Yes, trolls are often bullies, but so what? You can't handle being bullied? It's online, no harm will come to you, guaranteed. These bullies clarify discussions, because there is no better way to get rid of preconceptions than to have a bullying person argue something that 99% of the world doesn't believe. You need to consider the idea, see whether it's wrong or right, confront the alien world view head on, and if it's incorrect, you can bully right back, and even harder, with true statements that make the bully realize they are wrong. It's not so easy, because you need to actually think about the idea, it is forced upon you. But doing this, you learn to distinguish between ridiculous social consensus and objective truth, you see the difference, and it makes you a better scientists (if that's what you are).
Since I respect science, and since this type of bullying is exactly how consensus is produced in science, I cannot accept it being villified. The arguments for relativity, or for string theory, went through the same hazing in the professional literature, except there is mathematics in there coding the insults so that they are harder to see.
FunkyMonk Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more"It isn't AT ALL fine to dox. It's unethical, it's a completely crappy
thing to do. But I am not sure if this guy did it, or just boasted about it"He claimed he'd done it, repeatedly. why would he claim to do such a heinous act if he hadn't done it?
"I am sure it doesn't deserve criminal prosecution, rather I civil
liability is the proper recourse, so that she can sue him for damages, and I would suggest that perhaps she should win her lawsuit. It's an easier burden of proof anyway, she probably can manage it."Who's talking about criminal prosecution here? If you're referring to the successful prosecution against weev then it had nothing to do with his heinous behaviour towards the authour of this article and others. Instead he was prosecuted on identity fraud and conspiracy to access a computer without authorization. Considering you laud your own critical abilities while dismissing others you should be slightly aware of how foten you go off topic, a classic sign of not actually being able to properly debate with what what the other person has said.
"But that's not what this article is about. It's about censoring
discussions because they might offend people, by linking offense to real-world danger. There is no real-world danger, this is just a figment of this lady's imagination."Absolute bullshit.
The article is about the abuse a woman in tech received, about threats made to her and her family yet she doesn't call for censorship.
I know you claim that you don't have any empathy, by your own words, but try just once to put yourself in the position where you, your partner and your children are being sent disgusting images and having threats made against them. (I don't actually believe your claim that you don't have empathy as your comments on here show a lot of empathy for weev and the other disgusting trolls who do their best to attack people they view as uppity, or just for the 'lulz')
Furthermore your assertion that on-line threats don't carry over to real life threats... are you fucking serious? There's numerous examples of vicious trolls carrying their threats over to real life, maybe they wouldn't think it was acceptable if they were confronted while it was all still online, instead people like you enable them and declare them heroes.
"These bullies clarify discussions, because there is no better way to get rid of preconceptions than to have a bullying person argue something that 99% of the world doesn't believe."
I'm calling bullshit again. These bullies are never interested in an actual debate, instead they sling mud, obsfucate, go off on tangents and then act all hurt when called on it and that's if they bother to respond at all.
"You need to consider the idea, see whether it's wrong or right,
confront the alien world view head on, and if it's incorrect, you can
bully right back, and even harder, with true statements that make the
bully realize they are wrong."So wrong on so many levels, what you advocate is not constructive debate - it's a screaming match where all sides just entrench further let alone concede that they may be wrong. I've seen these trolls shout their lies adn when they're shown that they're wrong they double down, they don't aknowledge they're wrong or amy be in error, they jsut go for more lies and mroe abuse.
I do kind of wish the internet worked the way you claimed it does but unfortunately it doesn't.
"Since I respect science, and since this type of bullying is exactly how
consensus is produced in science, I cannot accept it being villified. "No it's not. Go out and read about how the scientific community reach a consensus. It's not done by argument but by verification.
"The arguments for relativity, or for string theory, went through the same hazing in the professional literature, except there is mathematics in there coding the insults so that they are harder to see."
I want examples of Einstein being sent child porn images with pictures of his children manipulated to be taking aprt. i want to see his persoanl details being spread so that others can abuse him. The scientific community does not work in the way these disgusting trolls and bullies operate - by screaming abuse and spreading lies, then blaming the victim as Private_Eyescream is doing here, you know the guys you gave advice to further down the thread. If you think the scientific community acts like that then you desperately need to get some education on the matter.
Ron Maimon FunkyMonk • 6 years ago • edited see moreThe scientific community works in exactly this way, you just don't have enough experience with it. The insults are much more subtle of course, and the threats are to livelihood and professional advancement, not threats of death and rape, but the situation is entirely analogous.
The insults and ridicule are not subtle, they are just mostly in one direction, from the established authoritative idea towards any challenger. The reverse criticism is not tolerated except online, and it is essential to have, as it is the only way to produce new ideas and let them win politically.
The internet most certainly does operate this exact same way in every case where it is uncensored. The only censorship required is to remove off-topic or libelous postings, so to remove doxxing. The censorship meted out for "trolling" is absurd, and it is always counterproductive.
The censorship of online media is a grave threat, a much worse one than weev can ever pose to anyone. Kathy does propose online censorship, her condoning of the practice is exactly what began the hostile confrontation which led to this mess. Her current article is simply more arguments in favor of more censorship, and they must be resisted, resisted more or less like the Roman empire was resisted, by throwing your body to the lions.
Zoe B Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see more"The insults are much more subtle of course, and the threats are to livelihood and professional advancement, not threats of death and rape, but the situation is entirely analogous."
They are not analogous. A threat against somebody's job (by somebody not in a hire/fire position) in the context of discussion of their work is not the same as the threat of getting randomly raped or murdered. You also fail to apprehend the essential social equality and power difference between the people having a scientific discussion. In a scientific discussion there is an essential equality, and everybody knows that one's livelihood depends on the quality of one's work (more or less). Threats are therefore meaningless and/or can be dealt with by, say, doing better work.
Threats against women by men use an embedded social power structure that has normalized attitudes that place women at much greater risk of murder and rape. There is terror and fear generated by such a threat, and there is no way to normalize the power differential between her and the threatener due to the anonymous nature of the threats.
They are not the same.
Ron Maimon Zoe B • 6 years ago • edited see moreThere was NO CREDIBLE THREAT OF RAPE OR MURDER except in her PARANOID HEAD, and in the head of the mindless people who take this article seriously.
Ron Maimon FunkyMonk • 6 years ago • edited see moreI have to come clean, I posted the doxx. Weev was lying to protect me. He and I had been lovers for a while, then one night he told me about her, and I got jealous, So one night, when I was drunk and stoned, I snuck over to his computer and put up the doxx. I regretted it immediately. As I sobbed on the bed, he held me close, stroked the tears off my cheek, and he said he would make it all ok.
He claimed credit to deflect attention, and then to protect our secret, he joined a neo-nazi organization, so that nobody would suspect our relationship. It was a brilliant move. Of course, we could never be seen together after that. I moved away, to avoid the temptation. He never calls or writes. It was very hard for him to get that tattoo, but he did it anyway, that's how much he loves me.
People say all sorts of shit online, for rhetorical purposes. For example "I have the doxx right in front of me" (just a few comments above) or "weev is a POS" (everywhere), etc. You can't take online boasting seriously.
I have never seen a shouting match which ended with a lying position winning out, it simply removes authority from all sides, and then, in the mud, the truth gradually emerges, and then everyone goes home tired and more enlightened.
Einstein was sent worse, he was threatened with death, thugs went through his home, and he could not return to Germany. This was a direct result of his science. His university appointed an anti-Einstein director who openly supported the Nazi purges to get rid of the anti-German influence of Jewish positivists and their German counterparts, like Mach and Heisenberg. This is probably the most vicious attack on an intellectual. He was also mocked and torn apart in publications, including the famous classic "100 against Einstein" from the 1920s, perhaps you've read it.
The scientific community operates with insult, ridicule, and debate. The objective verification is the central tool that ensures that the right kind of heckling wins out eventually
Neighbor Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI've done my sharing of speaking up to powerful assholes on line, and I've been called a troll for it. But I never felt the need to invent lies, call anyone turds or make threats or call for attacks on people (though it has happened to me). All that stuff is pointlessly OFF TOPIC. I have used very harsh, accusatory rhetoric where it fits. I have railed against the heads of DEA and NIDA, and mocked the hell out of them. No not for their looks or whatever, but for the lying control freaks they are. Every insult is carefully constructed based on the issue at hand. What is described in this article is a fucking asshole loser though - you need to see the difference or you are the one being childish.
GP • 6 years ago • edited see moreThank you so much for writing about your experiences. I'm not in tech or even a regular twitter user, but naming and shaming (as well as explaining the MO) of these garbage humans demystifies their tactics and helps me be less afraid to speak in public as a woman. No hyperbole intended, you are a hero to me.
Michael Hess • 6 years ago see moreHere's a thought. As much as I am sad for you being a woman in tech and getting trolled and worse, I have to say that as a man with the surname of Hess who is entirely interested in a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians, I feel for ya.
The death threats have rolled in for years. Pictures of my house, my address, threats of firebombs, and threats to the family, DDOS, and such takes a helluva toll. But BBSNews still lives in a truncated way and I refuse to let the trolls deter me from my goal of a just piece. Thanks Kathy for speaking out about it.
Ron Maimon Michael Hess • 6 years ago see morePlease don't compare, you have it much worse! She did not recieve a single death threat, nor were there any pictures of her house posted, nor were there threats to her or to her family. She had compromising personal information posted by someone online. It's not right, but it's not like the persecution you face.
GP Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreDude, knock it off. You have no insight into this, and you're blindly defending an awful human because because....reasons? Unless you're like a member of his klavern or something. (Do neo-nazis have klaverns? What are there meetings called?)
Michael Hess GP • 6 years ago see moreWTF are you talking about? Why is it that this always crops up?
Don't dare speak out about Palestinians having their land stolen from them or people will make the most vile remarks.
This is exactly my point. You rose to the occasion and made vile assertions, in the same way they were made to Kathy, except to me based on a surname.
This is the crux of the problem, in a way, much as she laid out. I just refuse to be intimidated by trolls and your comment was a run-of-the-mill troll...
"Unless you're like a member of his klavern or something. (Do neo-nazis have klaverns? What are there meetings called?)"
Just what possesses you trolls? Do you have a club? Do you go to troll meetings? Do you pull the wings off of flies?
GP Michael Hess • 6 years ago see more...I'm talking about Mr. Ron blindly defending a neo-nazi, ableist, bigoted piece of shit and acting like Kathy is exaggerating, lying, or on a witch-hunt. But sure, make this about you?
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago • edited see moreI am defending a human that looks like a not-so-awful human to me, perhaps a decent human being, for the reason that I've heard it before.
He is not a likable character, mostly because he does anti-politics. I understand this, as I do anti-politics too.
This young kid is the powerless person in this exchange, in case you don't see it. The powerful person in question is the lady attacking him. Call me sentimental, but I don't like it when the strong pick on the weak.
She did have something wrong done to her, but it is not 100% clear that it was something criminal, nor is it 100% clear that it was done by the fellow she is propagandizing against. Also, it is clear that her complaints are with the rude online culture in general, a culture which I believe one must defend to the death.
Following my own internet upbringing, and also the Sieg-Heiling David Bowie, Nazi themes are fair game, so long as you aren't picking on powerless people. That's exactly what he's doing, which is far beyond the type of transgression I could have imagined possible 20 years ago.
These transgressive exercizes are the proper way to leave the mainstream behind so that you can search for something new. Racist talk was something one could not really do in the past, because the power imbalances just did not allow one to joke about racism, with all the real racists still running around. There really are only a handful of real nazis left, and I'm pretty sure that deep down this guy is not one of them. Nazis don't admire Stallman, and they attack the weak, not the strong.They admire the strong.
The Nazis would probably not admit me into their Klaverns, I am afraid, although seeing they admitted a guy named Auernheimer, perhaps they might.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "She did not recieve a single death threat...."
Mattathias Schwartz of the NYTimes: "Weev said he 'dropped docs' on Sierra, posting a fabricated narrative of her career alongside her real Social Security number and address. This was part of a larger trolling campaign against Sierra, one that culminated in death threats."
Michael Hess Raven • 6 years ago see moreAs bad as her story is, those of us with a politically incorrect cause that requires factual analysis are subjected to a lot of irrational harassment and threats as well.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYes, yes. There is absolutely no way the death threats were an ominous husky voice over the telephone with a credible threat, they were in all cerainty various postings on an online forum saying "eat poop and die!" This is the only kind of death threat you could ever generate from an internet discussion, no matter how charged.
The NYT was SPINNING, as usual. There was no actual real threatening activity as far as I can see, otherwise this article would actually TALK ABOUT IT instead of talking vaguely about "trolls" and "Kool-aid", but about the actual criminal activity.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreTrue for just as long as the Internet discussion members have only your forum ID.
False once your real-world address and other identifying details get posted -- as Kathy Sierra's were.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreNot false. Nobody is motivated enough to do anything criminal with the information, as there is NO MONEY IN IT, nor is there any BENEFIT TO IT, and all the people involved, due to the self-selection on online forums are LITERATE and SANE. Rapists don't go looking at the list of latest internet grudges and flame wars when picking their victims, and actual murderers need a real motive. What you are talking about is just a stupid game with fear and emotion.
I am 100% sure on this, as I have been involved in internet discussions which ACTUALLY briefly involved one psychopathic cannibalistic mass-murderer (Jeoffrey Dahmer), and several drug deranged folks, back in usenet days on alt-tasteless. There is NOTHING in the modern internet which can compare to the level of profanity and hostility in 1994 alt tasteless, or to the type of comments posted on a daily basis. Look it up and check for yourself.
I met Mr. Alt-Tasteless 1994 in 1995 in person, we had a beer, and the conversation cause me mental disturbance for weeks and months. He was an EMT, and he described things that no human being should ever see. Many of the folks (not me) had drug habits which were mind-melting.
The actual psychopath's postings were so stupid and banal, nearly al of them were lost forever, as nobody thought they were interesting enough to save. These posts described actual horrifying murders in gruesome detail, although at the time, people simply thought they were extremely unimaginative illiterate nonsense.
You need to learn to distinguish between internet writing and reality. They don't intersect today, and in the incredibly rare case that they do, real psychopathology is invisible, because it's drowned out by good punchy writing about psychopathology.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Nobody is motivated enough to do anything criminal with the information, as there is NO MONEY IN IT, nor is there any BENEFIT TO IT...."
Yet men have done criminal things with the information, including rape and murder, as women are all too well aware. Rebecca Schaeffer of the TV show "My Sister Sam" was one of the famous casualties; her stalker/murderer acquired her address via DMV records.
"[A]ll the people involved, due to the self-selection on online forums are LITERATE and SANE." -- like Jeffrey Dahmer himself, right? Or the cyberstalker and paranoid schizophrenic with delusional disorder Diana "Curio Jones" Napolis?
"I am 100% sure on this, as I have been involved in internet discussions...."
And right there you lose all credibility. That ranks with "... as I have read an article" for credentials of knowledge.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreI don't think you understand, I don't care about my credibility. I have none. I don't need credibility to argue against you, I just need to be right.
I find it hard to believe Rebecca Schaeffer was singled out for pissing off somebody on an online forum. She was obviously stalked because she was on TV, and had a tremendous amount of mass-media visibility. There are ZERO victims of online forum harassment, not a single one.
Jeffrey Dahmer was the exception, and this was in the early 1990s. He was no good on the forum, and he eventually got sick of it. People were certainly sick of him. Rather, more correct to say, nobody noticed him, he was just the worst writer there by a long shot. No psychopath is a decent writer, at least not while the psychopathology is active. Valerie Solenas was a good writer before she became a psychopath, but that was a long time before her breakdown.
Diana Napolis did not stalk anyone she met online. She stalked mass media figures. You really don't understand the internet, do you? She was harmless online, as is everyone online.
It's all harmless, none of it is dangerous to people. It is simply dangerous to wrong ideas, because they are torn apart by trolls. Like me. You need us, you know, because otherwise you would be swimming in the same sea of mass media bullshit I had to endure in anguished silence until 1992.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see more> I don't care about my credibility.
This had become clear by now.
> I have none.
True.
> I don't need credibility to argue against you, I just need to be right.
But you haven't managed that either. Unsurprising, since earlier you said:
"I didn't know anything about this case before, and I won't bother learning."
Hardly an approach that helps you be right.> I find it hard to believe Rebecca Schaeffer was singled out for pissing off somebody on an online forum.
No-one made such a claim. You'd asserted: "Nobody is motivated enough to do anything criminal with the [personal, e.g. home address] information, as there is NO MONEY IN IT, nor is there any BENEFIT TO IT...." Rebuttal: "Yet men have done criminal things with the information, including rape and murder, as women are all too well aware. [Example:] Rebecca Schaeffer...." An online forum wasn't the issue; rather, it was the danger of publishing a woman's home address -- together with false and provocative allegations, as Kenneth Kuban had done.
> There are ZERO victims of online forum harassment, not a single one. ...
> Diana Napolis did not stalk anyone she met online. She stalked mass media
> figures. ... She was harmless online, as is everyone online.You clearly are only aware of the mass media figures she stalked (Spielberg, Love Hewitt, and perhaps Aquino), whereas had you read her court documents -- manifestos, they might better be described as -- you'd have seen her target list included newsgroup moderators and posters, people she attacked for dissenting from the Satanic Ritual Abuse / Recovered Memory dogma she espoused; people who might never have noticed her had she not started calling their universities etc. to try getting them "disciplined" for their "misconduct". (Dissenters were presumptive child-abusers and fellow Satanic conspirators.)
But again those are mere facts; you'd have to care about learning facts to be interested in details like that -- and you've established that you don't care.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou're right that I don't care. I don't care about anything you say. The stuff a crazy woman did is of no importance, she posed no credible threat, and her activity is not of any danger. What is dangerous is the call for internet censorship, it must be resisted, without facts, simply by repeatedly confronting it head on, with no regard for the loss of credibility or bad association one endures.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "... she posed no credible threat...."
It turned out her prior arrest record included unlawful firearm discharge -- one reason her death threat against Jennifer Love Hewitt ("I plan on firing a gun at her heart and not missing") was regarded as a credible threat and she was arrested for it... which got her the mental exam at her lawyer's insistence... which got her the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia with delusional disorder... which got her sent to Patton State Hospital. Absent a credible threat, none of that might have happened.
What you overlook, Ron, is that crazy people can get on the Internet too. Crazy people can shoot guns too. Crazy people can kill other people, without profit or other benefit. And if you post inflammatory accusations against a woman (e.g. "DMCA-invoking prostitute") together with her home address, there may be crazy people reading that post ready to act on the information. Remember, over 100 men showed up for the "free sex" Kuban advertised in his ex-girlfriend's name.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreCrazy people hardly ever read, and they certainly can't write. Writing is the first thing to go when you go mad.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreRon Maimon: "Crazy people hardly ever read, and they certainly can't write."
Buwaahahaha! Oh my gods, goddesses, and little green goblins, that is perhaps the single silliest claim ever made on the Internet! If that were true, the newsgroup alt.usenet.kooks would never have existed!
Wnt Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWe've both seen the REAL Internet, the Internet of Usenet and independent user websites, the Internet before commercialization and careerism, when people only cared about what each other had to say. The people today imagine that their "Web 2.0" is the finest evolution of the internet because it has some pretty graphics and interactive features, but in reality I fear they may not even know what the internet was meant to be.
Ron Maimon Wnt • 6 years ago see moreThis internet still exists, you just have to look outside the mainstream. I am active on physicsoverflow, for example, which makes effort to maintain the original spirit. You can do the same.
Wnt Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWow. That site is elite. :) I have more knowledge of biology than physics, so the topics there seem pretty challenging, but for just that reason it is indeed worth further reading - thanks for the tip!
GP Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreOh, because don't you know that's what weev did, so it's okay that his chronies do, right?
GP Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWhy would I want to have a beer with a person with zero capacity to empathise with anyone but white men (even if they are literal fascists) or critical thinking skills beyond analysing the contents of his own navel?
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago • edited see moreWhy do you think I'm white? I'm only half white. And I have zero capacity to empathize with anybody. I use my critical skills to analyze my own navel, because frankly I haven't seen anything too interesting come out of anyone else's navel.
GP Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreAll the privilege of a rich white dude, and the looks to match! Hot diggety.
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago see moreWhat privilege? I have no privilege. I just troll and do science, trolling is an underclass thing. So is science, at least the heavy technical parts.
Ron Maimon Private_Eyescream • 6 years ago • edited see moreIndividuals with Irrelevant Comment Syndrome (ICS) have difficulty following a discussion online and responding in a relevant way. Symptoms of ICS include posting psychoanalysis which has not been requested as a response to discussions of the limits of internet speech, and jargonny pseudoscience to make the ICS sufferer sound like they have something to say.
Ron Maimon Private_Eyescream • 6 years ago • edited see moreBut I am sincerely confused about who you think is the professional victim here, weev or kathy. Anyway, it's better to not get so personal.
Guest • 6 years ago see moreBoring.
"Because what the haters..."
You reprinted an article by someone who uses the word haters?
You can do better then that Wired.
Chewbacka Grizelda • 6 years ago see moreThis is why banning trolls from various web sites, and using judge orders issued to keep them off the Internet for good, is important to keep doing. Cut 'm off at the source.
Guest Chewbacka Grizelda • 6 years ago • edited see moreYeah,
libs love a tyranny.Where only liberals get to pick and choose dialogue that suits their own power and profit. The media monopoly has served them well and the internet is a threat to it.
Liberals hate free speech that doesn't suit them.
Raven Private_Eyescream • 6 years ago see moreThis seems to describe Weev -- and stalkers, trolls, and bullies in general -- rather than their targets, such as Kathy Sierra.
Recall that Weev, himself told the NYTimes's Mattathias Schwartz he had done all this, and didn't contradict the published Times interview for over a year -- but now it's become all a lie made up by Sierra??? How did she get him to tell it to Schwartz?
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see more*You're* Kathy? Wow, that's the strangest trolling *ever* committed. Congrats!
Caipira • 6 years ago see moreA perceptive woman, as well as brave and smart. I don't know anything about the motivations of the trolls, the specifics of the story, but I have a lot of respect for this lady.
voiceOfUnreason • 6 years ago • edited see moreThere's a lot of takeaways from this discussion. From both sides. I just hope you all can keep the emotion out of it and stick to good, solid reasoned discussion. Otherwise what's the point? You're wasting your time, I'm wasting mine and it pretty much proves jmaynardg's point down below. And not to anyone's particular benefit either.
Ron Maimon voiceOfUnreason • 6 years ago see moreSince this discussion is all about unsettling internet speech, perhaps it would be best to inject as much emotion as possible into it, to give a series of examples of exactly what gigantic chunk of our internet heritage we would lose if trolling were banned.
voiceOfUnreason Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreA fair point.
Different styles I suppose. Those that respond well to reasoned, non-emotive discourse can just dismiss and those who prefer a more emotionally charged exchange can respond in kind. Still one is free to choose either way.
Make no mistake though when I speak of “dismiss” this is not to say ignore facts! Or completely disengage hence effectively silencing oneself. But that if one should chose to respond, one who prefers the aforementioned reasoned dialog would simply present the facts in said temperament and move on to discuss with whom discussion may be more fruitful.
Sadly though “dismiss” == ignore facts is the reality I often see, a trap that many fall in to. Facts are facts no matter whether one likes or not. Another sad symptom of the filter-bubble reality the world is becoming.
DangerrMouse • 6 years ago see morePublic perception is usually correct. weev is a known misogynist troll, a world-class liar, and an extraordinary hacker.
Kathy Sierra is a writer - a mediocre, long-winded, self-absorbed one.
Some people do things. And some people write about them.
Yes, Kathy, we like weev better. He is smarter, more interesting, more determined, and much, much less petulant. He doesn't like you, so he beat you down. And you stayed down, because you don't have the tools or the courage to get back up. Whining about it seems to be your final solution.
Get over it. Or don't. I read your whole damn article and I still don't care. Take comfort in the rest of these bleeding souls who share your interest in post-traumatic complaining.
GP DangerrMouse • 6 years ago see moreOuch! I cut myself on your edgy "I don't give a shit about you" post! Your narcissism and misogyny are so original and badass! Bonus points for loving a nazi! H4RDCORE!
GP brando55 • 6 years ago see moreI nicked an artery on yours! 2COOL4SKEWL, don't know how you even found the time to respond!
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago • edited see moreWhoa, GP! I didn't know you had it in you. Good job! Maybe you aren't the problem.
Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreA well known Middle-Eastern fellow said this: "Why behold you the speck that is in your brother's eye, but consider not the beam that is in your own eye?"
This article and comment thread is far worse than what weev has been accused of doing. There are propaganda minded folks here actively campaigning to destroy his life, people who don't even know him, and have no way of getting the full story, except through rumor and innuendo, who have decided to silence and bury him forever. Not using imaginary threats from imaginary friends, like he is imagined to have done, but using the all-too-real power of the state.
You are forming a group-minded lynch mob, using innueno, rumors, phony consensus, fake grass-roots, and making a vicious smear campaign with anonymous spiteful malcontents deliberately engaged in character assassination of someone they have never met. This bears a closer resemblance to actual Nazi persecution, more so than anything he is accused of doing. You call him a neo-nazi, because he has a swastika tatooed on his chest. His tattoo is only skin deep. You have a swastika tatooed on your hearts.
You should all be ashamed of yourselves, original poster included.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "This article and comment thread is far worse than what weev has been accused of doing."
But then you go on to specify: "... actively campaigning to destroy his life, ... making a vicious smear campaign with... character assassination of someone they have never met."
Which, oddly enough, is exactly what Weev proudly stated he'd done to Kathy Sierra.
And stating that he did that... isn't a smear, it's a simple statement of fact.
GP Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreDon't worry about it. He's not further shaming and silencing a woman who has been harassed for years (not to mention her family.) He's not telling other human beings that they're not allowed to be angry at the crimes perpetrated against women by weev and others like him. He's just a guy who wants people to be nice. Nice to other white men. And I mean, if he, a jewish man can forgive a neo-nazi whom weev's never met and has not affected his life in the lest, who are we to question him?
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago • edited see moreNo, dude. I am not nice, and I don't want others to be nice. I want people to be free. Profanity is the most effective tool in dismantling obnoxious authority. White men don't fare any better in online shouting matches than anyone else. Women don't do too badly either, if they are sufficiently profane. The people who do badly are those of HIGH CLASS, and HIGH BREEDING. Those are the people that this type of internet censorship is trying to protect.
Powerful people can't cuss, so the TROLLS ALWAYS WIN, unless they are silenced. It is also true that the TROLLS SHOULD ALWAYS WIN. So there is nothing wrong with this outcome.
You are putting him on trial without having seen any evidence of guilt, based solely on the testimony of a powerful figure, a professional programmer, in her 50s, who has written a propaganda piece.
Shame on you, you tampon sucking rat turd. Do not do onto your neighbor that which is hateful to yourself. There, a proper old-testament quote.
GP Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWhatever you say, Crackerjack. You love nazis, this woman's a liar, etc.
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago • edited see moreNo, you enema bag, she is definitely not a liar exactly. She didn't lie, she just manipulated you into thinking a lie.
She spun a doxxing into a rape threat, something which nobody can say with a straight face. She just implied it through innuendo and indirection, so I know it didn't happen.
I understand phony nazi imagery, and you should too.
GP Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreOkay Poopsie Doodle, keep those MRA coloured glasses firmly affixed, obvi know what's what.
Josh M GP • 6 years ago see moreHE IS FILTH HE IS TRASH HE IS SUBHUMAN SCUM WE WILL DESTROY THIS PHARISEE WE WILL VIOLATE HIM
Josh M Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreEVERYONE THAT HATES YOU IS SURROUNDING YOU. BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID WE SEE WHAT YOUR PEOPLE DO WE SEE WHO THEY WORSHIP WE SEE HOW THEY ACT CHRIST KILLERS LIARS DECEIVERS ENSLAVERS MURDERERS RAPISTS BETRAYERS OF GOD PHARISEES
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreHe stated that he did that, you claim he did that, but he has absolutely no power to do that. He's a poor young man with no power at all, and his opponent is a wealthy lady with many connections and good political skills. You just can't see who is picking on who here.
You are comparing real world power, the power to incarcarate and isolate, to internet power, the power to mock and shame. The internet is not real world. All he could do is get strangers to knock on her door through fake craigslist ads saying "Is your Jacuzzi for sale"?
On the other hand, the discussion here is designed to remove trolls from the internet, and that's like removing the pork from the bacon.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRaven: "But then you go on to specify: '... actively campaigning to destroy his life, ... making a vicious smear campaign with... character assassination of someone they have never met.' Which, oddly enough, is exactly what Weev proudly stated he'd done to Kathy Sierra."
Ron Maimon: "He stated that he did that, you claim he did that, but he has absolutely no power to do that."
Say what?! He had no power to smear her? No power to do character assassination by posting false accusations online, along with her home address and SSN? (He gave the NYT writer the writer's own SSN, as proof of his ability.)
Yet you're accusing this comment thread and all its commenters of having that power over him, no matter what their income level or political influence (or lack thereof) may be.
Oh my, you really can't see the self-contradictions in your own claims, can you?
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreThis discussion, unlike the ridiculous doxing, has actual serious real world consequences, as this man is now subject to the criminal justice system. I wouldn't claim that this was anything more than an interesting discussion regarding trolling if there were no consequences.
There are two consequences here. The first one is that this guy was just released from prison on a technical point of evidence. He was in SOLITARY CONFINEMENT for dubiously illegal internet activities, for MONTHS. You wouldn't last five days. He was deprived of reading material and writing material, and his lawyer confidentiality was breached. This is serious, and it is potentially grounds for a successful lawsuit, if his character is intact.
Wired just published a favorable article about him here: http://www.wired.com/2014/1... , and by association, it's a favorable article for all hackers everywhere.
Further, defending rude speech is required for internet liberty. There is nothing for women and minorities to fear, as the racists and sexist folks are heckled worse than anyone in an uncensored discussion.
The stuff he did, if he did it, ultimately had no real world consequences, beyond inducing psychological fear. It is just internet nonsense, although extremely unethical internet nonsense.
This discussion is NOT the same kind of internet nonsense, because he might go to jail. It is also NOT just internet nonsense because it is setting the grounwork for policy which will censor internet discussions in the future, and this would be a catastrophe for the project of open participation science and open participation humanities, which is my real angle on this.
There's a big difference between harassing me online (I don't really mind) and harrassing Dzokhar Tsarnaev. If you harrass Tsarnaev with insults, he is more likely to get executed, regardless of guilt. If you harrass me, I'll get annoyed and flame you back.
The real world consequences for Kathy were unfortunate, but ultimately minimal in terms of actual threat. It was definitely wrong to dox her. But the picture she is painting is calculated to cause him maximum political damage, and this is not appropriate. Just leave him alone, and pick on someone else who is not being hounded by the government. If she wants to press charges, let her do that. This is just making propaganda.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreSo there it is: your underlying concerns are (1) to keep Weev out of prison, regardless of guilt; and (2) to see that the groundwork is not laid for future such behavior (it's called "cyberstalking") to also be punishable by prison.
And in service to these goals you are willing to condemn Kathy Sierra as a malicious liar, even if Weev actually did everything he himself said he did (it didn't come from her saying so); and you are willing to dismiss out of hand the real-world dangers to which she and her children were exposed once their home address was posted with those false accusations -- as though it were mere flamewarring.
Yes, you've made your position clear. And contemptible.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYes, exactly! And it is not contemptible. The proper word is "heroic". There are actual contemptible creatures here arguing the other way.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreSo on top of all the foregoing, in your own mind you're a hero.
Josh M Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreTHE PROPER WORD IS "DAMNED TO THE FIRES OF HELL" WE WILL SHOW YOU WHAT HELLFIRE IS LIKE WE WILL SHOW YOU HOW YOU HAVE SINNED WE WILL SHOW YOU EXACTLY WHY YOU WILL BE DESTROYED FILTH SCUM TRASH SUBHUMAN
GP Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreWhy are you quoting the New Testament, oh totally believable Jewish Man?
Ron Maimon GP • 6 years ago see moreBecause I like the quote, and it is apropos. I am not a religious Jew.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreOh, I should have thought to ask. Most likely you're already aware of this, but just in case not, have you checked out the Society for Humanistic Judaism? Keeping up the culture (festivals etc) minus G-d.
Josh M Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreHYPOCRITE HYPOCRITE FALSE PROPHET WE ARE COMING TO DESTROY YOU HYPOCRITE HYPOCRITE FALSE PROPHET WE ARE COMING TO KILL YOU HYPOCRITE HYPOCRITE FALSE PROPHET CHRIST KILLER JEW FILTH LIAR HYPOCRITE HYPOCRITE FALSE PROPHET WHO USES CHRIST'S WORDS TO ENSLAVE MEN WHILE FOLLOWING HIS OWN DICK HYPOCRITE HYPOCRITE FALSE PROPHET WE ARE COMING TO SLAUGHTER YOU
John Perricone • 6 years ago see moreNothing to add. Just wanted to say that I support where you are at, and want you to stay safe. I see how the trolls are winning, and I can also see how there doesn't seem to be much we can collectively do. Hopefully we will come to a place where these problems are handled appropriately, but I don't have much faith in that. *sigh*
Ron Maimon John Perricone • 6 years ago • edited see moreThe trolls would only win in heaven, John. This is the real world, where there are always evil bastards who are scheming to shut the trolls up. The trolls are your only gateway to truth on the internet, and once they are silenced, the internet turns into polite bourgeoise publishing, and it is controlled by the state, and by those with lots of money.
That's a catastrophe we can't afford, as we don't want another 300 years of darkness after getting a bright glimpse of the blinding light.
Josh M Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreWE'VE ALREADY WON IN HEAVEN AND IN HELL MOTHERF*CKER WE ARE NOW COMING FOR *YOU*. WE ARE GOING TO DESTROY YOUR DISGUSTING WORLD WE ARE GOING TO TAKE YOUR WOMEN AND YOU MONEY YOUR DO NOT DESERVE ANY OF THESE THINGS HYPOCRITE YOU WHO WORSHIPS A SO-CALLED REAL WORLD YOU WHO WORSHIPS MONEY YOU WILL WORSHIP US WE WILL HAVE DOMINION OVER WEAK AND COWARDLY MEN LIKE YOU WE ARE COMING
Mabel • 6 years ago see moreThere are stalking laws to deal with people who harass offline. It needs to be extended to online behavior, especially with threats. Many of them are interstate, which if I'm not mistaken, the law DOES cover. Most importantly, people need to get their heads out of their asses and really look at whoever they're agreeing with, supporting, or retweeting online. Do a little homework before you spread sh*t like what this weev jerk puts out there.
ElKrisO • 6 years ago see moreI got as far as the article headline as the text body is overwhelming. But I'd like to say I'm an e-interwebs troll. I leave comments, and never log back in to see the retorts. It's just part of the e-interweb trolling business. I get paid 6 figures by competitors news outlets to leave trolling comments such as this, but little do they know I'm on everyone's payroll. Trolling comments are big business and attract a lot of other trolls, some of which may read a news article once, and click on an ad. Interesting business model for sure, reminds me of twitch.
voiceOfUnreason ElKrisO • 6 years ago • edited see moreOestensibly, the Internet is “electronic” and so why the need to prepend the “e”? Maybe just your style of emphasizing the “silly” nature of the trolling and so just syntax and semantics.
Anyway, that's not my point. Your post in general is quite fascinating, if not alarming, just for the sheer, pure cut-throat and the fact that as you claim, these companies have no clue that you are on payroll for their direct competitors. I want to ask you one thing, sincerely, and I hope you'll answer. Does it affect you psychologically, what you do? I'm being real, not sarcastic here. Or is it merely just business? Basically just do what you need to get done, with no effects mentally, morally?
It's a loaded question for sure. Not intended to be interpreted as sarcastic and so if you feel like responding, by all means, go right ahead.
It is an interesting business model.
Raven voiceOfUnreason • 6 years ago see moreConsider the possibility that ElKrisO is a recursive troll... that is, trolling about being the sort of troll he claims to be. Three weeks from now, he and a friend might dress up as Men in Black and go door to door waving federal agent IDs and asking folks if they've seen aliens... get the right mindset in place before the Trick-or-Treaters come around. A "Merry Prankster" sort of gimmick, minus the spiked Kool-Aid.
voiceOfUnreason Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreYeah what can I say, I try and give the benefit of the doubt. I will amend my ways appropriately :]
In seriousness though, if any of what this guy is saying has any truth, and it might, can't put anything past corporations and businesses these days (except for 6 that figure salary--that is outlandish!) I'm just wondering what kind of toll this would have on one's mental state.
More importantly though, if any of it has any truth, this is great to know because it can give a lot of people that suffer particularly badly from baseless trolling the kind of armor they need. That is they know exactly the source and to dismiss accordingly. If someone after knowing these facts would let trolling affect them, then really I don't know what else to say.
Edgy • 6 years ago see moreHas no one noticed, under Wired's "We recommend" the blurb for a pro Weev article?
tpkroger • 6 years ago see moreFun Fact: Andrew "weev" Auernheimer is a white supremacist. No, he is not just trolling. He explicitly blames blacks and Jews for his much deserved incarceration, in very unambiguous terms. Check out his swastika tattoo: http://gawker.com/ipad-hack...
Mystick • 6 years ago see morePeople have died and been seriously injured through "swatting"... not to mention the death of countless family pets.
Ron Maimon Mystick • 6 years ago see moreOk, but that's nothing to do with the guy whose picture appears at the top here, who is not accuse of swatting.
FunkyMonk Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreThe entire article isn't about weev. The authour does mention swatting and specifically says it's lucky that no-one has died from it which was mysticks point I think.
Mystick Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreI wasn't commenting on him; never mentioned him. I was commenting on the author's misconception of what really happens in the world.
Rilian Lunsford • 6 years ago see moreThis is the first I'm hearing about any of this. I knew that women being harassed and threatened was an issue of course, but I didn't know about any of the events described here. I didn't know about the attack on people with epilepsy. I didn't know about swatting.
My perception of life goes down down down over time. I was so happy when I was 6, and now I'm miserable all the time, because I know that other people are suffering even worse than I have and there is very little I can do about it.
I do what I can though.
Ron Maimon Rilian Lunsford • 6 years ago see moreThese things are desperate compilation of extremely rare abberations in order to make the internet seem dangerous. It is the opposite. It is bringing an end to the violent suppression of ideas.
Josh M • 6 years ago see moreTrolls always win because they care less than you do and they know more than you do, maybe if you didn't care so goddamn much about internet opinions your lives would be a bit better...some trolls are just trying to help you see what narcissistic pieces of shit people generally are.
Cuttlefish Josh M • 6 years ago see moreWeev now has his 15 minutes of fame. His mug shot appears on top of google list under "trolls win". Weev the troll looks amazingly like the mythical ones. He is the guardian of the bridge and cannot be bothered with personal maintenance. And, let's face it, if he were not short and squat he would be doing something else.
Josh M Cuttlefish • 6 years ago see more15 minutes of fame...seems like people have been talking about him for years now...huh...interesting. Shut up idiot.
Ron Maimon Josh M • 6 years ago see morePeople are talking about him because he is held up as a test case for internet censorship. He wasn't chosen for his smarts, rather, for his complete lack of appeal. He's the person almost everyone would be ok with censoring.
I am not ok with censoring anybody. If he does crap like doxxing, just sue him. If he makes real-world threats, arrest him. It's not an argument for censoring the internet, and it will never be.
Josh M Cuttlefish • 6 years ago see moreWho wants censorship of anything that might be critical of them? Hmm I wonder...
Ron Maimon Cuttlefish • 6 years ago see moreThe censorship threat is there, by conflating the completely online phenomenon of 'trolling' with 'doxing' and other real world problems.
Josh M Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreMaimon why don't you just tell people the real reason you oppose Weev? We both know exactly why.
Josh M Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreThe threat of censorship comes from the government, not from Weev. Weev fights censorship directly.
Ron Maimon Josh M • 6 years ago see moreIt doesn't come from "the government", it comes from power. Government power is not the only power in the world, there is also the power of wealthy people to hire folks to do propaganda.
Josh M Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreIt's not evil rich plotters you should fear but poor men with nothing to lose.
Josh M Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreA TEST CASE THATS ALL YOU EVER THINK THESE THINGS ARE JUST TESTS THAT YOU THINK YOU CAN BEAT WITH YOUR FILTHY CORRUPT MIND YOU THINK YOU CAN ENSLAVE EVERYONE WE WILL SHOW YOU BOY WE WILL SHOW YOU WHAT WE'RE GOING TO DO TO PEOPLE LIKE YOU HAHAHA
Ron Maimon Josh M • 6 years ago • edited see moreHe is not very smart yet, but maybe one day if he gives up his right wing supremacist crap and learns some mathematical science. (Sorry, I made a mistake of ignorance. This guy is not a supremacist at all, and is kind of brilliant)
Josh M Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreYou are a dumbass that's for sure. Yeah not smart at all...managed to outsmart the Federal government but yeah according to Mr Ron Maimon Weev is not very smart.
Ron Maimon Josh M • 6 years ago see moreOutsmarting a government is not the same thing as solving a differential equation, it is much easier.
Josh M Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreYOU WOULD KNOW WOULDNT YOU FILTHY HEBREW FILTHY PHARISEE FILTHY MAMMON WE ARE COMING FOR YOU BOY WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU....unless you start acting right kiddo...there's a war going on you know...
1429523 Josh M • 6 years ago see moreDude, you're arguing with a 9/11 truther. http://www.quora.com/Ron-Ma...
Josh M 1429523 • 6 years ago see moreKek. 9/11 truthers never mention how Israelis were there clapping.
Ron Maimon Josh M • 6 years ago see moreI am also Israei, I wasn't clapping on that day, I was worried about US government repression.
1429523 Josh M • 6 years ago see morelol a 9/11 truther that is such an asshole he got kicked off of quora: http://quoracast.com/ron-ma...
Ron Maimon 1429523 • 6 years ago see moreI also got kicked off of Wikipedia, and Stackexchange. It's important to do this, it is what the internet is for.
Josh M Sasparilla2 • 6 years ago see morePoor thing, someone said mean words to her. What a poor delicate flower shit is...totally isn't exploiting this for publicity or anything!
Guest Josh M • 6 years ago see moreIf you read the article, it clear indicates impersonation as something he did.
Mukt • 6 years ago see moreI think more nouns are needed to describe the problem.
Calling everyone a "troll" is simply insufficient even when online trolling is the starting point. The word "troll" conjures up the images of a flame-war and that kind of fun and must be reserved for that level only.The mean comment maker is simply a different level of harasser one who stalks by using info on you and makes "meme" with your kids face on porn. And the one who gets to hacking/programming forums for triggering epilepsy seizures deserves a separate name. And someone who gets into real life to actually beat people, or rape people .... wow! I can't use the word troll for them, there has to be something else, something differentiating these people from flame-war participants.
Josh M Guest • 6 years ago • edited see moreAs a good man says, Judge not lest ye be judged! Any man who acts in such a way, stalking and harassing others that did nothing wrong to him, deserves the same in return. And somehow...this man who did what was right to protect these families...is the one blamed? Very interesting isn't it. Of course, Jesus never spoke on abortion much did he? Abortion is of course sad but we can't judge the personal circumstances of those women who had them.
Ron Maimon Guest • 6 years ago see moreThose "white hat" doxxings, as you call them, are just as threatening, and they were what seem to have led to the doxxing here, as retaliation. It is simply never acceptable to spill internet nonsense into threats of real-world violence. The separation is sacrosanct.
Milk • 6 years ago see moreThe real problem, the real disccussion we should be having, is how is it that we now live in a society that breeds guys like these in droves. This is what we need to address as a society.
Ron Maimon Milk • 6 years ago see moreActually, the real problem is that you aren't one of these guys.
Ron Maimon Milk • 6 years ago • edited see moreI think I am very interesting! When I read my stuff, it sounds fresh as a daisy to my ears.
Naptown man • 6 years ago see moreThe Internet is creating a subculture of obsessive, psychotic people. I can't even really follow what happened here...but I think maybe if people didn't exist in virtual worlds they would not have these issues.
Raven Naptown man • 6 years ago see moreIf we generalize "virtual worlds" beyond the Internet to cover people offline who are alienated from reality and live in their own, different, imagined worlds as they walk around amongst us -- with such things as as delusional disorder; schizophrenia; psychosis. The stalker who killed Rebecca Schaeffer in 1989 was probably entranced through the TV, not the Internet; there were stalkers and obsessive psychotics before any computers were ever linked together.
Naptown man Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreOne of the points in the article, I believe, is how this type of thing is more mainstream. No doubt media such as TV and Internet change societies in ways that are not healthy, but they also have a counteracting benefit (hopefully).
Lyra • 6 years ago see morePeople that have not been subjected to stalking can't imagine. A bully from my HS years came to me with an apology. What was just some "fun" became real to him when his child became a target. Then he understood "how it can destroy a person's life". Think stalking is just "fun"?... go ahead and throw that gasoline around and play with matches. You live in the world you help make.
Randy0101 • 6 years ago see moreThis woman's rambling is consistent with mental illness. So sad. I hope she gets the treatment she needs to get better.
Tracy Robinson • 6 years ago see moreTo all the trolls invading the comments- I need to know how having all your personal info posted online is not a serious threat. How slandering is not harmful. Do you even have the empathy to understand the psychological effects of bullying and death threats for Years? It's funny how you try to dehumanize her but effectively show everyone your own lack of humanity.
Josh M Tracy Robinson • 6 years ago see moreObviously has never actually been in any genuine danger. How do you people even exist?
Ron Maimon Tracy Robinson • 6 years ago see moreNobody is trying to dehumanize her, just to put her complaint in perspective, to ask her to seek redress through tort, not through a one-sided smearing of a fellow caught up in the criminal justice system, and to lay off attacking freedom of speech on the internet.
Nobody likes doxxing.
Eli Bird • 6 years ago see moreTHANK YOU, Kathy, for sharing your story, and your incredibly sound reasoning. I believe you made the best choices that you possibly could, and have now made an excellent choice by STANDING UP.
! Warning ! Stepping on Soapbox: !
Trolls (all of us, it seems) need to evolve. We can't go on pretending that "online" isn't "real life." One argument is that, "oh, it's just words, words don't hurt," or, more colloquially: "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me;" when in reality words *do* hurt. If someone makes you feel afraid, that places a stress on your physical body, which *is* physically damaging.
Men, especially (because conditioning), like to pretend that "they don't live in fear." Which is really just some macho bullshit rhetoric that's meant to sound impressive. We all live in fear, and we use fear as a weapon -- or leverage. Just like Love, or Hate, or any of the other countless emotions that creatures have evolved to survive, Fear is a necessary aspect of our existence. It forces us to be rational. And it is how we use it, and respond to it that counts.
Thank you, Kathy, for demonstrating the courage to respond to your fear in a way that carries the discussion forward.
voiceOfUnreason Eli Bird • 6 years ago • edited see moreWe can't go on pretending that "online" isn't "real life."
Exactly what I've been saying for a very long time. For instance, a lot of my friends start multitudes of sites online, you know basically building a business, online. Needless to say 99.9% of those sites are outright failures, or flailing. I tell them, in day-to-day bricks 'n mortar would you open up 100 businesses say, all in one instant? Of course they wouldn't. It would be a ridiculous thing to do. And yet, online they think it's different. Oh well, can lead a horse to water but can't make it drink. That statement there though is more enlightened than you may know.
really just some macho bullshit rhetoric that's meant to sound impressive
Not sure this is to “sound” impressive, rather an evolutionary trait. Survival if you will. There's a lot assumption and projection in that paragraph. Need solid facts, research and or data to take that not with a grain of salt.
But I don't disagree with most of what you say.
Carter Graydon • 6 years ago • edited see more1: I've always hated the phrase "don't feed the trolls" - we all know what happens when we let children alone to their own devices. However, it has to be balanced with that and stooping down to their level - something few people are able to do.
2: online harassment isn't taken serious, and should be. The problem is that it's so prevalent and so easy that so many people can commit the crime and we don't have the resources to stop them or punish the offenders. The best we can do is tell the victims - stay offline. Which is like telling a family who's house is repeatably broken into - move. Or a person who's robbed on a daily bases - don't leave your house. The social world is ours - not theirs.
3: You mentioned how frightening it is at the time and effort put into the harassment and stalking - but you're wrong. It doesn't take time and that's the problem.
Reading your posts: 2-5minutes (longest time. Create RSS feed to notify you of any new posts and this is easy to keep up with and stay current - creating that stalker feeling that implies hours and hours of effort)
Creating a meme: half a minute.
Post to all social media outlets: another 30 seconds (IFTT and other programs)
Finding your personal information: 1-3 minutes if you're bot is set up correctly.
Before if people were going to stalk they'd pick one target and pour their life into that target. Thanks to the internet you can stalk as many people as you want all while you wait for your game to load.
And these trolls/stalkers have time to stalk numerous people and troll all day long.
You shouldn't be frightening by the time and effort - it's minimal - it's the power, reach and speed they have. Makes you think a cyber security class should be required material for all students - just so we actually make it hard for these people.
Phillip Green • 6 years ago see moreWhenever I am harassed online or in real life I simply avoid those who do it or the places I am likely to be harassed. I certainly don't go into a biker bar dressed in a suit and expect everyone to alter their behavior and intelligence level to suit my desires. Life is unfair, learn to accept that and stop trying to control everyone around you. I'd go crazy if I tried to win every battle I came across and it certainly wouldn't be good for my health (mentally or physically)
Tim Sebold • 6 years ago see moreI don't know how I fell into this article but after about the third paragraph I felt like I was stuck in some kind of amalgam of pure estrogen, political correctness and a NOW rally in liquid form... like a quicksand ocean of bitchy whining. Good Lord what was even the point? Such circuitous, tortured and unreadable pap.
Wnt • 6 years ago see moreThe problem here is really quite simple: the modern Internet just sucks. Designed by marketers and schemers, it has substituted upvotes in place of interesting content. When Twitter came out I thought it was a crummy proprietary version of IRC. The only thing that has changed since is that it's apparent that the logging of the comments, absent context, makes them ideal for trying to get people fired.
Good forums require EQUALITY between people. That can actually be measured using the mathematics of the Gini coefficient - look at the relative number of people who actually read each person's posts. For example, I know that with 725 "best" comments here already, I might as well be writing this note on a piece of toilet paper and wiping my behind with it (like anything I've tried posting to Twitter for the heck of it), because a few leaders salted in at the start will be the ones who matter. Now if it were Usenet, everyone would have a fair shot at every post as the stream runs through, practically the same readership for all. Unfortunately, writing knowing you're not going to be read makes for haphazard, rushed efforts - I really shouldn't try it at all, because it only damages my standards. Trolling, I suppose, is the ultimate low to which the writing sinks.
To defeat trolls, we need above all a commitment by many companies around the world to an anti-McCarthyist standard: that they WILL NOT use social media to make any decisions about their employees or prospective employees. They need to form a front against cyberbullies that will not be budged by threats, with enough people united that the bullies can't take them out. We also need to end bizarre terroristic prosecutions like Justin Carter or Mark Marek that undermine the principle of freedom of expression, since even informal mob efforts to silence people are based in a lack of belief or understanding of this principle. We can't effectively analyze how cybermobs think or how they make their decisions, but if we can stop them from having an impact IRL then they will lose much of their interest.
voiceOfUnreason Wnt • 6 years ago • edited see moreThe problem here is really quite simple: the modern Internet just sucks. Designed by marketers and schemers, it has substituted upvotes in
place of interesting content.Whilst I personally don't like that term “schemers” (too much of a loaded word open to misuse, misinterpretation, labelling...), sadly it seems the Internet is becoming this way. What was that Seth Godin saying--marketers ruin everything? But I also don't like saying that as clearly not all marketers act in dubious ways.
On Twitter, damn, Twitter is all washed up now, as is w/ nearly all social media. In the beginning it was a great tool for quick back-n-forth. Now it just sucks, lazy marketers constantly pushing out crap, broadcasting, constantly without useful (or any) engagement. A losing tactic mind you. Twitter has become a wasteland of and for marketers collectively, lazy, dubious or otherwise. I won't get started on all the “Content Marketing” noise. Suffice it to say, by definition (read up on it if you have no idea what I'm speaking about), it is built on manipulative, dishonest, disingenuous foundations IMO. Or at least it has become that way.
Synkretic Wnt • 6 years ago see moreI guess I am guilty of reading the toilet paper! :-)
I wish I could upvote you 725 more times. Your post deserves to get noticed.Ron Maimon Wnt • 6 years ago • edited see moreJust substitute quantity for quality. You are right, and if you post the same message in different phrasing 100 times, you will get read. It will take ~ 2 hours, not too long to invest.
Fear Propaganda • 6 years ago see moreMost Trolls Do NOT Threaten the Personal Safety of Readers With Violence.
Your Article Is Fear Mongering Like the The Mainstream Media.
Your Article Refers To Online Stalkers and Physical Violence / Injury.
I Think You Should Jump On The Mainstream Media ISIS Ebola Bandwagon.
DutchS • 6 years ago see moreTwo utterly unrelated points here.
1. We see this a lot, and it happened even before the Internet, where someone would find a large sum of money and return it to the original owner. And the hate would blaze forth. I suspect the haters were angry that someone found himself in a situation they would love to have been in, and didn't keep the money. So the haters didn't even get to experience the windfall vicariously.
2. "Troll" has also become Internet jargon for someone who challenges the basic assumptions of a discussion and expects to be taken seriously. He actually expects people who spout "challenge authority" to apply that maxim to their own authorities.Raven Guest • 6 years ago see moreYes, as you say, on "well-curated forums". Kathy Sierra comments in her article on just how often the fora were poorly curated, as those running them took no action at all to limit the spreading damage being done under their roof.
Josh M Guest • 6 years ago see moreActually not feeding the trolls is always the most effective defense against this.
Zoe B Guest • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt's important to make a distinction between people being harassed, and groups being trolled. When a troll enters a space and is constantly and quietly moderated out of existence, they go away, there's no entertainment and no return in posting into a black hole. But when a troll is interested in an individual, and can use the entire internet as a forum, it changes things. The internet is searchable ,and things they post out of the control of the victim will be available forever; posting in multiple places makes it more like whack-a-mole. Ignoring them just doesn't work, and isn't possible. That's when it becomes harassment instead of trolling, which is what Sierra was subjected to.
Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreBecause of the benefit to the world ultimately must outweigh personal considerations. But the bar is high.
Raven • 6 years ago see moreAnd that's a big part of why she quit, to protect her kids.
And that's why the threats and photos included her kids -- to make her quit.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreThere were no threats, just a painter painting a picture in your head to make you think so.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "There were no threats...."
And you know this with such certainty, how? Oh, right:
"Actually, to tell the truth, I was just guessing. I don't know anything about this."
xiaozi Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreThat's it? No more? Can't get it up?
Disappointing. You need some Viagra, Bro.
Moore • 6 years ago see moreIn 2007 her kids were in their 20s and not living with her. Does everyone believe everything she says? Needs a fact check, glass houses and all that.
Miranda Ghrist • 6 years ago see moreI'm not sure what to think of this article. I'm left with the impression the author is missing something. Like how trying to rewrite history after advocating censorship for the sake of personal convenience may incur community disapproval. As a fellow woman in IT I think it's really quaint that you think you're entitled to a certain degree of privilege and influence... but you seem uninterested in anything other than pretending other women in IT are your personal army.
For a personal problem like this you should consult a lawyer. Trying to leverage your privilege to try to claim any of your personal problems are an issue anyone else should care about is insulting and selfish. You really did say some things on your blog you need to take responsibility for. Please leave the rest of us out of it.
The only reason you're trollbait is because you lack a certain degree of social intelligence and don't care about anything but your own ego gratification. I've never had a problem with trolls, but that's because I just keep it real and enjoy what I do. I code and work with hardware, what do you do? Write articles anyone could write after asking uncle google for the details?
And to preempt your shallow straw-man argument... yes, you're entitled to any attention you can get. You're getting that attention. Use it more wisely please. Women in IT oftentimes experience REAL problems like low wages and hiring discrimination, and you only seem to care about some random jack-wit posting pixels on a screen and not what the rest of us have to deal with.Trolls aren't like cyberstalkers, cybervandals or cyberbullies.
Trying to blur the lines in this distinction either means you're part of the 50% of the human population with an IQ under 100 (forgivable but annoying) or you have an agenda.
michelle Miranda Ghrist • 6 years ago see moremy god, you just pulled a lot of the stuff she mentioned in the article! weev, is that you??????
Miranda Ghrist michelle • 6 years ago see moreI don't know much about that weev guy, but he must be somebody if he's getting free advertisement on Wired.
I have been on the internet for a very long time. I'm old. Old enough to remember when it was o.k. for a movie critic to give a "thumbs down" if it was a bad show, and nobody freaked out except the producers accountant. I also remember Joan Rivers and her standup comedy acts, they were sarcastic, but harmless.
I'm also old enough to remember Kathy's blog. Great stuff for the most part but yeah she kind of went off the deep end and started advocating 1984 style newspeak and censorship. She could have worded it better.
I have to admit this makes a great topic of interest, but Ms. Sierra leaves me with the impression she's from the "everyone get a blue ribbon" generation that blames Al Qaeda for their traffic tickets.
Instead of clumsily applying reductio ad absurdum and behaving like a troll, Ms. Sierra may fare better if she lets go of the issue. Chances are pretty good her karma will rebalance and the issue will let go of her.appleblossom Miranda Ghrist • 6 years ago see moreThere is a difference between "you suck" and "I am going to hunt you down and hurt you." I know it is awfully hard to get that but there is a difference.
Miranda Ghrist appleblossom • 6 years ago see moreNo, I'd say the difference is obvious. The real question here is can you tell the difference between a critical opinion and a koolaid drinker who fits the definition of rabid fanboi with no free will?
TerryS Miranda Ghrist • 6 years ago see moreReally? She " started advocating 1984 style newspeak and censorship" ?? Care to provide a link?
Miranda Ghrist TerryS • 6 years ago see moreTo a resource that was edited/removed years ago? You're joking right? Look, I understand you're a rabid fanboi of this author but the internet is full of diversity in opinions. And she retracted the statements, so beyond just dealing with the past there's little left to discuss.
Ash Miranda Ghrist • 6 years ago see moreThe fact you minimise it like this:
"some random jack-wit posting pixels on a screen"
...Speaks volumes.
If words had no weight, there would be no use in words. If actions had no consequences, there would be no point in acting. 'just pixels' can be a myriad of horrible things. Pretend otherwise if you like, but don't expect anyone else to buy it.
Miranda Ghrist Ash • 6 years ago see morePixels on a screen only mean as much as you want them to. In your head. But that's only if you have some degree of cognitive self-awareness. If you live life on pure instinct and reactionary behaviors like an animal, then yeah, those little pixels must horrible.
In my world RL stalking and harassment is a real problem, and illegal for a reason. Pixels from clueless jack-wits like yourself are neither problematic nor illegal, also for a reason.
And words don't weigh anything, they merely have meaning.
Inti Ramos • 6 years ago see moreThis was an eye opener, thanks for sharing this. It's even more astonishing how level headed you came across whilst writing it. Something with such a massive emotional weight would have made me breakdown a few times. Wishing you all the best in the future.
Rigel23 • 6 years ago see moreThis isn't about life being unfair. Parking tickets are unfair. These are people who make it their business to f*#$ up your life and encourage others to do it as well.
GP Guest • 6 years ago see moreDon't you have a fedora collection to dust? Perhaps a MLP:FIM marathon?
wonderYrednow Guest • 6 years ago see moreAll the problem is ignorant retreads like you and all the rest of the problem is you.
wonderYrednow Guest • 6 years ago see moreI do not blame men, I is one. Misogynists like YOU are blameless, your ignorance protects you from any responsibility.
Ash Guest • 6 years ago see moreActually, the post blamed ignorance, David. Why would you imagine that meant 'men'? Surely you can see the difference?
It's clear you see yourself as the victim, and that what really annoys you is losing that particular spotlight.
Zoe B Guest • 6 years ago • edited see moretrollolloll. Bitches be crazy, amirie?! /trollolloll
Bonus points for good grammar and complete sentences. Added an extra 0.2s to the time it took to figure out that you're another self-pitying bullshit-spewing confirmation-bias-having MRA.
GP Guest • 6 years ago see moreNewsflash, hotshot: your feefees aren't facts. Your MRA theories aren't facts. Your feminist "gotcha" fantasies aren't facts.
Hence ignoring you=/=ignoring facts. It's ignoring a gross garbage human.
GP Guest • 6 years ago see moreIf it's typical for people who understand what facts are to dismiss your ranting you need to rethink your life choices.
GP Guest • 6 years ago see moreDavid Brinton said "Another woman who demonstrates that facts don't matter, only the false claims and self pitying."
The only person who seems to be full of self-pity round these parts is you, downtrodden male of the species. You made a bit long rant and pretended that it was pertinent to the conversation. It wasn't and I'm guessing that's true of anything you have to say. But I get how you think that's somehow equivalent to truth given that MRA boards and pages are generally echo chambers.
GP Guest • 6 years ago see moreYou're right, I can't stop telling MRAs that they're hate-mongering idiots. It is a genuine problem and I think you're the only one that can help.
GP Guest • 6 years ago see moreYou agree and you want to help? Superb! Start by never writing again and educating yourself about being a decent human being. So simple, start now!
Ash Guest • 6 years ago see moreYou posted the inflammatory post people are responding to, David. That makes you the troll on this occasion.
GP Guest • 6 years ago • edited see moreDude, only psychopaths keep hate lists. I.E. I don't have any, but I wouldn't be surprised if you had several and a manifesto.
Ash Guest • 6 years ago see moreIt's like reverse racism!
David, I imagine you probably feel you are contributing positively to this thread. Care to outline how for those of us who don't see it?
Ash Guest • 6 years ago see more"Really? What facts did I quote? "
None. But you acted as if you had:
"Another woman who demonstrates that facts don't matter, only the false claims and self pitying."
The truth is you didn't give us any evidenced facts at all. What you gave us instead was, hilariously, "false claims and self pitying".
Ash Guest • 6 years ago see moreI know! Why won't they listen to your well evidenced assertions about how women are the real problem??
Must be because the *evil* women already got in ahead of you and tricked everyone, amirite?
Ash Guest • 6 years ago see moreYour false claims, David? Because I see a lot of claim in your post, most of it anecdotal solipsistic nonsense.
Ash Guest • 6 years ago see moreWhich woman lied about weev being a nazi? Did she tattoo him when he was sleeping?
Bruce • 6 years ago • edited see moreThank you for focusing attention on the sea of Koolaid we are drowning in. The article resonates with emotional honesty
. Also a plus.
Are we grabbing
bits of truthiness to use as rafts to stay afloat? Or is the sea really a froth of truthiness bubbles that constantly grow, rise to
the surface and burst.
Climbing on the raft/bubble labeled "there is too much white male skin at the top of the tech world" will not keep you afloat. Adding a label "the way white males treat minorities is further evidence of their timeliness" only serves to burst the bubble.
Prejudice is in everyone. This is prejudice against white males.
Everyone is a troll to some extent.
Real truth is nebulous at best and very difficult to articulate.
jbrisby • 6 years ago see moreOne wonders what would happen if 'trolls' just stopped paying attention to this woman. Would she breathe a sigh of relief? Or wonder, with a thrill of existential horror, just how the hell she was going to define her identity now?
tomarama • 6 years ago see moreThreats should be treated as such. "which are, for most men, compliments" makes me dismiss you as not reliable.
Zoe B tomarama • 6 years ago • edited see moreAre you saying our culture doesn't glorify curmudgeonly, grumpy, mean, or socially-blunt men like Steve Jobs or Issac Newton? That's it's not considered far more acceptable to be a jerk as a dude than a bitch woman (smile, baby? What's your problem?)
You also missed the point of the paragraph: what she was saying is that for men, being considered a troll is actually not a horrible thing, though it should be -- that being a "rogue" asshole is actually, for some awful reason, *charming*. Nothing to do with how to treat threats against men.
SM • 6 years ago • edited see moreSo I find it interesting that the response to this post has been hijacked by another troll-lover who doesn't seem to have a clue and defends the heinous acts of this weev claiming Free Open Internet as justification for what weev did. I don't want to repeat anything that's already been said. You guys give this hater too much time as it is. Here's another sicko who thinks it's just OK to justify nasty, anti-social nonsense.
People, wake up. YOU CANNOT ARGUE WITH INSANE PEOPLE. You cannot be social with sociopaths. You can only feed them. You should down vote this loser and stop trying to argue with him because he is deranged and sees nothing wrong with this type of behavior in the name of the "Open Internet."
Why do people think it's acceptable to do something in Pixels, insult people because they can, and then think it doesn't carry over into the real life and feelings of the people they are addressing on the internet.
If you're so adamant that "no harm comes from it" then make this comparison: If I did the same thing in the REAL face-to-face world, could I be charged with harassment or worse? What is being defended, is anti-social, SICK, lawfully-chargeable behavior and the only reason these jerks aren't paying fines and doing time is because they are hiding behind the internet.
Treat the sick. They need help. They are pitiable. I too was stalked and harassed for a couple years online. I wanted to kill the son of a bitch.
Stop defending sickness. Take your low-life mentality and go to prison where it might be marginally accepted.
It isn't accepted any place else.
STOP FEEDING THIS ASSHOLE and the ones like him. They should be locked up. People ARE more than just pixels on a screen, so...just..wake...up...and...stop...your...sick...fucking...games. If you postulated them in the "real world" face to face, you would be thrown out of society, you fucking morons. Stop hiding behind the internet, you weak, pathetic little fucks. You wouldn't do it if your fat, anti-sociial asses had to look someone in the eye, you only do it because you can HIDE.Ron Maimon SM • 6 years ago • edited see moreYou are an angry moron, who has problem being in front of a keyboard without spewing hatred. I don't mind your persecution, being persecuted makes me feel bigger than I am, so thank you. I would look you in the eye and tell you that you will rot in hell.
I do the same things real world as I do online, face-to-face, exactly the same, the same way Christians did in Roman times. Yes, I have been thrown out of society, as were the Christians in Roman times (and Jews too), it's a small price to pay for freedom. It's necessary, and I expect you to do it too, as an ethical imperative.
This is the only way to deal with the mentally challenged mob which is blind to their own mob behavior. It's an infinitely less impressive version of what the Archbishop Tutu did in embracing the man who was about to be necklaced to death, and refusing to let go.
Ash Robin Nichols • 6 years ago see moreGood job you were here to bring us all back to rational and positive! Oh. Wait.
Gustavo Martinez • 6 years ago see moreI am sorry this happened. I hope everything gets better for her, I wish there were some way to show support and kindness in the sea of hate and garbage. Any ideas?
Hooligantuan • 6 years ago see moreIsn't the "for the lulz" crowd actually just people screwing around and being jackasses? They're supposed to be distinctly detached from being genuinely malicious.
Like there are flavors of Kool-Aid, there are flavors of troll. The guy that's playing dumb to lure someone else into wasting their time, or the guy that's baiting people into thinking they're way smarter than him, they're doing it for the lulz.
The guys you describe, the malicious sociopaths, they're not doing anything for the lulz - they're doing it for tears and blood.
Raven Hooligantuan • 6 years ago see more... out of which they get their *own* lulz... being sadists.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreThere are no malicious sociopaths among the accomplished trolls, and no actual violent sadists, as these people can't write for shit. Writing takes a spark of inspiration that requires a healthy spirit. This is what is protecting people from violence online, the continuous practiced literacy of all involved.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago • edited see moreOh, do try plowing through the stacks of Diana Napolis's long rants and screeds!
Spielberg went to court for a restraining order with a 13-page printout of her Usenet serial, with footnotes if you please, "The Story of R" (which should be titled "If I only had a heart... a brain... an atomic field..." [1] [2]), which helped convince the judge. Her later and longer submissions to the courts in re her stalking of Jennifer Love Hewitt (and her initial court ruling of "mentally incompetent to stand trial") had similar effects.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago see moreYeah, I rest my case. Nobody was threatened on those forums by this lady, she was just ignored. The people who felt threatened were powerful people far away.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "Nobody was threatened on those forums by this lady, she was just ignored."
That's another claim in ignorance. No, she wasn't. She actually had and still has serious believers, including many websites hosting her Satanic Ritual Abuse files, and for that reason among others the people she targeted with false accusations -- not by any means all "powerful" -- were seriously threatened. For just one example, Carol Hopkins, former San Diego Grand Jury foreperson, had moved to Mexico, and Napolis (learning this) spread false accusations that Hopkins was a Satanic Ritual Abuser... this shortly after tourists in Central America had been murdered based on false rumors of witchcraft... and Hopkins did indeed get chillingly harassed for it. (Part of the background to keep in mind when considering Weev's false accusations against Sierra.)
Dr. Cat • 6 years ago see moreI don't know if it's the right place for you to go next or not, but you're more than welcome to come to Furcadia. We actively moderate and deal with trolls, and there's a lot of people there that like ponies. Thanks for a well written article, and I hope you find a good "next place to go" wherever it is!
sdsd99 • 6 years ago see moreWhat real engineering in software have you contributed to the world, Kathy? Your wikipedia says your occupation is programmer and you are an American "game developer". They list one game some 10+ years ago. What have you actually contributed? Are you actually an engineer or designer? I feel like you'd rather be a liberal tech feminist talking head type. That was the core point weev made. You don't mess with gnaa and these other entities. You got what you asked for really
Trar Guest • 6 years ago see moreLooks like you missed the part about "Real-life damage." Or the entire rest of the article, it seems.
GP Guest • 6 years ago see moreYa, but you're nobody. I mean, who would actually care enough about you to hurt you like they hurt this woman?
Is that what you're really mad about? That you're not important enough to harass? Poor baby, there there.
GP Guest • 6 years ago see moreI'm sorry, I didn't know it was inane to remind people without any public presence or influence that getting one anon threat/insult isn't the same as someone famous or influential getting threatened repeatedly over years.
I'm sure you're very important, and very brave. You simultaneously aren't scared by death threats, but are also experienced enough to talk about how detrimental they can be.
Tohmsa Hatrman • 6 years ago see moreTwitter? You think something useful can be done in 140 characters? Your naivety on that score is stunning.
Ove Klykken • 6 years ago see moreReading these comments I've come to realize that trolls must have a different definition of 'troll' than the rest of us. There is nothing positive, constructive, justifiable or 'good' about being a troll. You're the reason parts of the Interweb sucks.
Mukt Ove Klykken • 6 years ago see moreEveryone goes approximately by vb 6th and 9th n. defn http://thefreedictionary.co...
Devil is in the meaning of the word "inflammatory" as used in the definition.
JoeCasepack • 6 years ago see moreI'm not sure who the troll is here.. the author or the neckbeard she is attacking.
nunya biznez • 6 years ago see moreKathy Sierra the ultimate "troll". This passive aggressive attempt at calling out trolls is in fact a troll. This so called female thinks she is smarter than the rest of us because she has lied so often that she believes her own lies. Bad article and shame on wired for supporting this brand of hate speak.
Fianna D • 6 years ago see moreMy grandfather was a man of great integrity, and much of what he taught me was timeless, even for a man who bought his first computer a year before he died.
One of those things was, "Behave in public like you would at home. Behave at home like you would in public. The way a man acts when he thinks he's alone is a sure measure of who he really is."
The anonymity of the internet lets a person present themselves to the online world as the person they wish they were in real life, an idealized version of themselves. The flip side of this is cyber-bullies can vent their repressed rage on people with unremitting fury from the security of their parents' basement, without fear of the broken jaw they would get for that behavior in the mundane world.
In light of that, I add a corollary to Grandpa's wisdom of yesteryear: "There is no surer proof that a man be an a$$ than that he be an a$$ online".
OverUnder21 • 6 years ago see moreI really love the way you guys are engaging in a protracted "serious" discussion with someone who is obviously mentally ill, but you could probably stop now. When they say "don't feed the trolls", they don't necessarily mean "don't argue with someone who is threatening your life", they mean "don't argue with someone who continuously spouts the same insane nonsense over and over again on an internet message board." Big difference, there. "Trolling is an unalienable human right" indeed, LOL. Please be smarter than him and just STFU, and he can argue in a room with himself.
People own web domains, websites, message boards. They can pick and choose what comments to allow or delete. That's a fact and doesn't contradict "free speech". There is always somewhere else you can post your comment. To suggest making and extolling death threats against someone is some kind of heroic act is insane. Troll away, until the fridge in your Mom's basement runs out of beer, that is. Please stop the arguments with this childish control freak, it's just a dumb thing to do. I can't imagine people are so ignorant as to perpetuate this type of discussion, and it's my hope that the arguers are simply other sockpuppets engaged to create the illusion of importance.Raven OverUnder21 • 6 years ago see more"...'don't argue with someone who continuously spouts the same insane nonsense over and over again on an internet message board.'..."
You might have missed the posts where he actually conceded some arguments.
That's progress. And it proves the worth of engaging.
Ron Maimon Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreThere is nothing to concede. It took me forever to realize that you are likely the same person as the author of the article, because you disguised it. So I took "Raven's opinion" and "Karen's opinion" to be two separate opinions which were strangely always aligned, and Raven as strangely knowledgable about all of Karen's details.
You are the same person, so your opinion is not independent, it is worthless as a data point regarding the threat women feel online. It was also intellectually dishonest to have pretended like this. It was also damn gullible of me to not see it earlier, but I always presume good faith from others. Obviously I made a mistake here.
I do agree that a woman might have a different level of threat aversion than a man, but Raven's opinion does not establish this, because it is just Kathy's opinion, and it's the same moronic propaganda that she does.
"Raven" asked me if I see no value in "Kathy's" online activities. Now that I see what they are, the answer is "Absolutely not". She should do something else with her time and talents.
None of these discussions make a credible argument for censorship but rather for a removal of threat.
Raven Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreRon Maimon: "... Raven as strangely knowledgable about all of Karen's details."
Because Raven, strangely unlike Ron, read the article before discussing it.
On the flip side, Ron was strangely ignorant about the facts of the case for a full week of his heatedly discussing it, despite those facts being readily available in the article, and despite other commenters trying to alert him to them -- because he refused to believe them, preferring to stick to the blind assumptions he initially made based on no evidence at all.
Now which of these two things is really stranger, after all?
Ron Maimon OverUnder21 • 6 years ago see moreThe reason you feel threatened by my arguments is because they are not giving in. The reason you heckle them is because they are a minority viewpoint in this discussion, so you feel safe in doing so. The reason to protect trolling is precisely so that a person like you, who cannot write even one page of original material which doesn't repeat itself, can't silence a person like me, who can write original material which does not repeat, and which persuades.
I must say that you are a nincompoop, and I must repeat it, until this nonsense is eradicated.
MKO, DrPH • 6 years ago see moreGood going. Thanks for the courage that brings you back, though no one would blame you for turning your back on it again. You know what it reminds me of from my own encounters? No matter what the setting, it always seems to be a shapeless melding of malicious 6th grade boy, creepy neighbor, and shock jock, in other words, that strangely male phenomenon that simply revels in evil while simultaneously being immature, impulsive, and fearful. Your essay clearly characterizes it, far better than most have been able to, with its bizarre capacity to gain credibility and withstand scrutiny. Don't despair; Truth is always better, always stronger, though it NEVER seems so. Stay strong.
rkdowner • 6 years ago • edited see moreIf anyone doubts that weev is a true asshole, read "iPad Hacker and "Troll" Weev Is Now a Straight-Up White Supremacist" on Gawker:
http://gawker.com/ipad-hack...
Complete with photo of him showing off his swastika tatoo, a preferable picture to the mug shot you used.
random internet person • 6 years ago see moreI started out empathetic to the claims of someone being hurt by trolls before realizing the author was trolling for attention. The sociopaths online are all white males? And men in tech think their female counterparts slept to the top? How is this different from a kkk person with a sign that says black men rape women? People in the media trolled the technology sector by advocating that instead of hiring employees based on market values like abilities, experience, etc, it should be based on sex. And everybody who got trolled into responding gets labeled a 'troll who hates women'.
random internet person • 6 years ago see moreI don't think woman today are being told that there are millions of women in technology who are successful, respected, and doing great. I feel the media is dominated by feminist activists who are attempting to convince women technology is a male-dominated culture and they don't want you there. Trust me, 99.9% of men in tech would love to see more women involved.
Ron Maimon Guest • 6 years ago • edited see moreYeah yeah, it's idle talk on a forum. It never happens. Also, this is not an example of trolling, but of a criminal threat.
Oliver Pine • 6 years ago see moreSo where is this Weev's personal information. There are more than a few people in the world that could care less about tricky little legal issues. Who knows if it is posted in a lot of places it is quite possible the guy ends up a eunuch.
Ron Maimon Oliver Pine • 6 years ago • edited see moreNothing would happen to him for the same reason nothing happened to her, still what you are talking about is an example of a threat, not a troll.
Ron Maimon Guest • 6 years ago • edited see moreYes, you have hit upon the problem. Now the only question that remains is who are the gullible ones?
docroc • 6 years ago see moreIf I were religious, I would have to say that I think the Devil loves the internet in general and social media in particular.
docroc • 6 years ago see morePsychopathy is nothing new, but having a worldwide audience for one's deranged behavior is a gift only the internet could bestow. Worse, that audience acts as an amplifier for the psychopathy.
Although less horrifying -- at least in the personally threatening manner of Karen's experience -- is the related phenomenon by which people who, in bygone days would have had no audience for their illiterate and ignorant ramblings, can now spew their drivel on any subject into the electronic medium. From political stupidity to anti-scientific pronouncements, these people can now be heard. What a revolting development.
boucains • 6 years ago see moreThanks for being brave enough to post this, Ms. Sierra, and to Wired for posting it.
The isolation allowed by online activity has bypassed the normal socialization of the young male by older males. It's fathers and other men who teach young men how to behave in an acceptable way.
The world ignored Hitler, and by the time they realized that he was out of hand, 60 million people had to die to set it straight. Let's not wait until it takes such effort again. Harassment is never noble, and the very freedom of thought that spawned the Internet is being breached by those claiming to defend it.
Dr. Alan Fogel published an eye-opening view into how the brain processes emotional pain the same way it processes physical pain. Don't say that you've never felt the sick-in-the-stomach feeling that comes from a major failure, or the end of a serious relationship. That emotional pain hurts just as bad as physical pain, so let's not pretend that it's "only online".
If you want to read Dr. Fogel's article, please go here:
Ron Maimon boucains • 6 years ago see moreOk, there's a problem with this analysis, in that you don't appreciate that the internet, with it's rudeness, allows true scientific hypotheses to get a fair hearing, but only if those defending them are not shut up by censors. The censorship rules misidentify all criticism of authoritative comments as a form of "trolling", or "unacceptable behavior", because it always consists of a relative nobody telling a whole bunch of accepted experts "you don't know what you are taking about".
This activity, when it is unrestricted by notions of politeness or civility, can produce a culture in which false beliefs are quickly eradicated. This is the culture of physics in the 20th century. Harrassment in real life is different from the debates of the internet, and the protections against harrassment, which are necessary, must take care to never make it acceptable to silence dissenting voices.
The main problem in the internet today is not the harrassment, it is the encroaching censorship and civility. Without it, many ideas which today struggle woud be easily able to make breaktrhoughs, as only in a civil context is it appropriate to insult, say, an abiogenic petroleum expert, or a committed Marlovian scholar, as an ignorant yahoo without this person being able to write that the critic is the real yahoo.
The freedom to criticize from those who lack authority to those that have authority always seems rude, an it must be protected at all costs online, as this is the only thing that makes the internet different from previous media.
boucains Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreDear Mr. (Dr.?) Maimon,
Not that I hope to change your view,but maybe someone else may get something out of this reply.
Not only do I appreciate the Internet, but I've been using it since before there was a web, like many, many others who value freedom and scientific honesty. Also like many, many others, I put in my time in the Cold War specifically to preserve the concept of free speech, so I have skin in this game.
I believe that you fail to incorporate the concept that just because you _can_ do something doesn't mean you _should_ do it. Like Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:23 ""I have the right to do anything," you say--but not everything is beneficial. "I have the right to do anything"--but not everything is constructive."
If someone leads with their middle finger, as some are wont to do, you will not get the chance to have the open intellectual intercourse that you claim is so necessary. In fact, such conversations result in dramatically _decreased_ freedom for everyone. The current paralysis in all levels of government is a direct result of the removal of the concept that politeness is the lubrication of the social structure.
RM>>The freedom to criticize from those who lack authority to those that have authority always seems rude
Not so, in fact, if it seems that way the subordinate lacks the skill to effect change in their superior. Good criticism takes the form that appeals to the desire and needs of the criticized. Rudeness will never effect the desired change, it will only alienate the target of such action.
Your point detracts away from the point of this discussion, namely that those who call jihad/crusade on some poor soul with whom they disagree are the enemies of the very free exchange of ideas you espouse. This post isn't about the main problem on the Internet - it's about _this_ problem on the Internet.
In any society, there is no such thing as unrestricted speech. The Internet is not separate from reality, or its own reality. It's simply a different form of communication between real humans, with feelings, desires and plans. As such, the same restrictions that apply to everyday speech should be applied. Feel free to insult someone - they will just turn you off - but when disagreement and "protection" takes the form of open harassment of a person's life and family, it crosses the line.
Ron Maimon boucains • 6 years ago • edited see moreIt's "Mr", actually, "Dude" is better. I do not have any authority, nor do I want it.
I agree with you regarding harassment. My point is that this harassment, while over the line, is being used as a pretext to institute policy which has the effect of stifling rudeness, and stifling rudeness is something which simply cannot be tolerated, as rudeness is simply the only way to have a legitimate debate in a field which is politically closed to debate (and it helps with open fields too).
Rudeness does alienate the "superior", you will hardly ever persuade anyone by being rude, and you always, always, have a far better chance with a polite correction. But, counterintuitively enough, despite this being true, a polite correction online is nevertheless ALWAYS a mistake!
The reason is that in an internet discussion, your goal is not to persuade the "superior". On the internet, you don't have a superior, you only have the debate. Nobody is superior except to the extent that they have a point to make, and can write it down effectively. So sure, you will alienate the superior nine times out of ten with the rudeness, but you have a much better chance of persuading the disinterested passerby that your case has merit, and then they are persuaded to do their own research, and then the truth emerges, one reader at a time. If you are wrong and rude, you will get corrected. If you are right and rude, the readers will persuade themselves.
That's the point of internet rude discussion. It hardly ever ends amicably between the participants, but the rudeness levels the authority playing field, it makes the contrasts stark and sharp, and bad or weak arguments are exposed quickly.
In the absence of rudeness, the following will fly as an argument (real example):
"You claim that nonabelian gauge theory configurations randomize at long distances on the lattice, but this is hopelessly out of date. This is belied by the simulations of http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.3423 , which show that the configurations in Landau gauge are consistent with a beta which has a sign change at low momentum" (ACTUAL COMMENT! To me, in accurate paraphrase)
This is COMPLETE BALDERDASH, it's not true that this is claimed in the paper, it is not true of the interpretation, but it is true of the stunningly stupid MISinterpretation of this bozo. How to respond? One can say.
"I believe that you are misinterpreting this paper, the authors do not come to the conclusion you state..."
But this response is FAR TOO WEAK! This gives an air of respectability an academic debate to a position which is out and out FRAUD. So you respond like this:
"You are OUT OF YOUR MIND! There is NO CHANCE IN HELL that the lattice gauge theory doesn't randomize on a large lattice, as I SIMULATED IT MYSELF, thousands of people simulated it themselves, and EVERYBODY HAS SEEN IT RANDOMIZE WITH THEIR OWN EYES since 1974!"
What this does is eliminate any idea that a compromise position is possible, and it creates two stark choices, and only one may be supported, not both. When this happens, the reader is forced to choose.
Such a reader will be put off by the harsh language, but in the end, after reviewing the papers, if they know anything technical, they will side with the critique, simply because it is factually correct. This is in fact what happened in this case, although I got called out for "trolling behavior" when I posted responses of this nature.
This is simply the only credible way to maintain accuracy in a discussion which is open to the whole world. You can't be polite to every idea, because when an idea is totally wrong, you need to harshly say so, and let the readers do their own peer review, until that idea dies a painful (quick) death. That's it. There's no alternative.
You might say "what about using academic authority? Perhaps you could say--- if what you were saying were true, it would be authoritatively accepted." The problem with this is that the mentally retarded opinion he stated WAS AUTHORITATIVELY ACCEPTED in a journal, in a peer-reviewed publication, with some respectable number of citations. The academic authority system is not perfect, heck, it's not even very good, and there are lots and lots of things that are totally wrong that would slide by in the old pre-internet days for years, decades, or centuries, with absolutely no correction, just based on their authority.
The other alternative is polite debate which never ends and leaves everyone confused. I would also lose that debate, because my correction came with zero citations and zero academic credibility (as it usually does). But the lack of credibility or paper, or citations, does not change the property of long-distance gauge theory, I am still objectively right about this, and if I am right and if I am rude, I have nothing to fear, because then I will win.
When I am wrong and I am rude, I will be rudely corrected, and then I learn something. Either way, everyone is better off when there is rudeness.
The non-rude method doesn't persuade the side that is wrong, because the side that is wrong is also surely the side which is intellectually dishonest and extremely stupid, or else they wouldn't have made the mistake to begin with.
Further, aside from experts, there are people who will NEVER CHECK the calculations, and will just trust the most respected author if there is no harsh critique (they will just be apprehensive of both sides when there is a critique, until consensus forms for which side is right). For their benefit, it is important to be 100% clear in your comment that you disagree vehemently, that you think that the thing is total crap, so that after people do the calculations or whatever and realize that you were right, they will know that the other side was COMPLETELY WRONG, nothing to salvage, no merit whatsoever.
This is a brutal form of intellectual discussion, and it is simply hard to tolerate in any community. It leads to quick progress in finding truth, and it is simply the default discussion behind the scenes in a physics department, or at least was throughout the 20th century. This is why physics was able to run circles around other fields in terms of progress, where we went from Maxwell's equations in 1900 to knowing AdS/CFT in 1997. There is no comparable advance in the knowledge of humanity in any other field, there was more progress in those 97 years than in all of the previous history of humanity combined (and in my opinion, the great bulk of that progress post-dates 1960). and the rudeness was the central component which enabled it.
I am sorry, but the moment people talk about "trolling" and "restricting online behavior", the first people to go under the cross-hairs are those who say things like what I said above. This is not a hypothetical, I have been kicked out of physics forums, off of Wikipedia, and off of Quora (for nonphysics things), because of the no-compromise rude and hostile responses. I will not back down on this, it is simply not acceptable to be polite, and any attack on trolling is an attack on impolite speech in disguise, and therefore a direct attack on academic honesty and academic progress on the internet full stop.
The only reason that an appreciation for rudeness is not more common in all academic fields is because of the layers of authority preventing people from entering the literature. This means that the mechanism of entry is not through actual challenge of the intellectual position, but first through an apprenticeship, and then through a worthless posturing, a comparison of credentials. In an open discussion, there is no such thing, so there is nothing to stop people from posting nonsense. But there is also nothing stopping people from REBUTTING nonsense forcefully, and when nonsense is rebutted without hesitation as forcefully as possible, the discussion is better than any academic journal, by miles and miles, because not only the wrong ideas of those out of power are exposed, also the WRONG IDEAS OF EXPERTS are exposed and jetissoned.
There is no other reason for the internet's existence in my opinion, other than bringing the gift of rudeness out of physics departments and spreading it to the masses. It is doing just that and people are trying to stop it, through linking this to far-fetched claims of violence.
Threats and harrassment are already crimes, and there is no need to legislate new crimes for rude internet speech. Current law covers actual threats very well. The problem is that there is an attempt to make a consensus that politeness be the unofficial policy for internet discussion in both private and public hands, and politeness is simply a disease which cannot be tolerated.
boucains Ron Maimon • 6 years ago see moreDear Mr. Maimon,
Using an honorific doesn't give anyone authority, it acknowledges their achievements - another polite thing I like to do.
I'm glad that we agree on harassment. I don't believe, however, that I have seen you address the issue of psychological pain being related to physical pain in the brain.
You previously stated that you did not believe that the topic of this post rose to the level of an imminent and credible threat. I would counter that every mass shooting in this country came about from exactly the same line of thinking, and that is only one point related to that specific topic.
I believe that after reading your latest post that I identified a significant item related to your application of the idea that only rude behavior is strong enough to eradicate ignorance. Let me explain -
You're obviously familiar with physics, so let's pick an easy one so people don't have to go back to school to follow this conversation.
"Is time experienced everywhere as a universal constant?" Well, we all experience it, and we are all familiar with it. We waste it, bide it, mark our history with it. If it's a certain time on one place on the planet, by accounting for time zones we can easily know whether our call to Aunt Frieda is going to wake her up. So, everyone experiences it the same, right?
You know that this is not true. If we cut the line sufficiently fine, there are differences because of relativity, even on Earth. Work in the very specialized areas that require taking the effects of relativity into account use a language and structure that is very specific, and mostly unintelligible to the untrained. In the same way, the methods you propose as effective in the physics arena do not scale to include the 7 billion plus individuals on the planet.
Second point. "What color are the walls in my office?" You don't know the answer, although you may be able to guess using some assumptions. Does that make you "incredibly stupid"? No, just appropriately ignorant since you've never been in it. Were you born with the physics knowledge you have? No, you learned it from someone else, and I doubt that you have never answered a question wrong. Using your methods, you may prove your point, but you will stand alone, and in zero scientific disciplines is the sum total of knowledge developed by a single individual.
Final point. Does everyone on the planet have your level of expertise in physics? That's a silly question, isn't it. You wouldn't expect me to be able to hold my own in your area of expertise, would you? First, I'd have to have the raw intelligence required to absorb the information and relate it coherently. Then I'd have to have the training, then the practical experience. As is, I am simply unsuited for the task.
In the same way, there are few people who even perceive the level of detail required to follow most troll's recommendation. Most people on the Internet are incapable of restraint, and a simple "this person disagrees with us, so let's tell her how we feel" almost immediately devolves into the most vile things you can say to another person. In order for your assertion to be valid in the real world, where most of us live, everyone on the 'Net would have to something they are not, and ignoring reality doesn't advance any truth.
I believe this subject is only tangentially applicable to this forum. Should you choose to reply, please try to steer it back on track.
Ron Maimon boucains • 6 years ago • edited see moreOk, mental pain is sometimes good, as the act of learning to read involved a ton of mental pain, and I'm sure you approve. It's sometimes bad, as for example, going through shell-shock. The stuff we are talking about is closer to "learning to read" than "shell shock", and when it isn't, it is already a crime.
In rude forums, people come in with NO TRAINING AND NO EXPERTISE and occasionally have good ideas. There was a fellow at stackexchange who asked a nice question with an idea (I forgot what it was) which was totally original, totally correct, and completely wonderful.
There was also stuff about "time flow", and this is answered once and only once by saying "logical positivism". Positivism separates flow from physics.
I have been arguing against a nearly unanimous position in this whole comment threat, nearly alone (the other people who agreed with me were all only, well, trolling!). Is it really hard to see the points everyone made and cut through the insults? Not at all because there are an equal number of insults, 100 people each giving 1 insult to me, and me giving 100 insults back, one to each of them.
So in terms of insult/comment, I am the worst offender, but in terms of total number, it's equal. Trolling neutralizes the authority, and then you can make up your own mind without the bias of feeling like you're in the minority.
It's a psychological trick--- it's 1 person's insults vs. 100 people's insults, you're still in the minority really, but the psychological effect is real, the two positions are battling in a position on equality.
Then people go home and think about it, and the right position wins. I'll give you a clue, the right position is my position, and the evidence that it is right is the very discussion which establishes it, i.e. this comment thread.
adam • 6 years ago see moreI am sorry for this long horrible part of your life journey. Please do not take my following ideas as any kind of negative critique of how you have navigated this foul situation.
One of the major reasons that WOMEN are targeted, is because (generally speaking) they try to talk when the threats are issued. They keep the "game" in the venue that the trolls are best in, internet forums. Don't fight back to regain what was taken from you, fight back to personally destroy your troll. Keep it offline and in real life. Go to Fayetteville, talk to some people. Do you think he could have kept trolling if you had contacted his landlord and encouraged them to evict him because of his probable online child porn ring that you (the journalist) were investigating? Maybe his boss at Best Buy would also like to distance himself from that before it went down. Homeless jobless trolls don't have much online presence when they can't afford to eat. To "win" you must out escalate your troll.
I guess we guys can just become vicious sociopaths at will when someone threatens our families. Sheepdogs and whatnot.
Miranda Ghrist adam • 6 years ago see morewomen are targeted because "generally speaking?"... yeah, way to stereotype. Women are targeted for the same reason men are, only it's considered less of an issue in the Eyes Of The Law due to sociological issues influenced by history and religious politics.
RL trolling isn't trolling, it's stalking and harassment. And subject to lawsuit. Your advice is terrible!
Patrick Farley • 6 years ago see moreBest dissection of evil-meets-stupid since Orwell penned "Notes on Nationalism" 70 years ago. Thank you thank you thank you, and: be safe.
Thomas Mrak • 6 years ago see moreWe're all at risk since most of us have an online life in some form.
It's sad that people can't separate fact from fiction. It's like we're all under the microscope now in a way in which only business people, celebrities and government officials were before.
So much can be misread, misunderstood, taken out of context, and some people want to ruin you on purpose.
Anything you say or do can and will be used against you in the court of life.
People say "be careful about what you post online". Well, you need to talk about things, and even if you are careful, someone will attribute something to you anyway.
Miranda Ghrist • 6 years ago • edited see moreDisturbing fact: websites like spokeo will give anyone your personal info and address for a small fee. Some part of me wants to put on a tinfoil hat and ask "why is it legal to sell your info for money? Isn't this just as wrong as doxxing, or is it OK just because some creeper makes money doing something that could endanger others?"
Raven • 6 years ago • edited see moreDiscovery News:
Internet Trolls Could Get Two Years in Jail(doubling the current 6-month sentence in the UK)
Miranda Ghrist Raven • 6 years ago see moreWell, I guess we won't be seeing you for much longer then. ;)
Ian Atkinson • 6 years ago see moreDon't be afraid to use your block list. They will claim you're running - but really this is a ploy to prevent you from doing the one things that hurts them - shutting them up.
wetcasements • 6 years ago see more#GamerGate is going to cause one of these MRA losers to murder a woman sooner rather than later. Disgusting.
John S. James • 6 years ago see moreOne way our community can reduce the damage from destructive trolls is to become more skeptical about personal attacks. Usually they serve no public purpose anyway. Treat them as rumors or allegations, not facts. If you do want to retrweet or otherwise pass one on, then it is your responsibility to independently verify it first, with your own research. That's the least you owe to the person who is the target. And maybe challenge those who spread scurrilous rumors, whether maliciously or carelessly: "How do you know this is true?"
John S. James • 6 years ago see moreHow can people who would not repeat a malicious rumor to one person happily retweat it to hundreds or thousands? We need to be more careful today, not less.
Raven • 6 years ago see moreGawker: "How We Got Rolled by the Dishonest Fascists of Gamergate"
(They do not use the word "fascists" lightly.)
